After rolling out Wi-Fi 7 to sections of the country, Rogers is now offering it to everyone, but it’s going to cost an extra $25 per month.

This is part of the telco’s new ‘Xfinity Pro‘ plan, which includes the Wi-Fi 7 hardware, a small battery backup, upgraded tech support and a professional installation. This install seems to include Wi-Fi extenders if need be, and the technician will attempt to install everything to best fit your home. This is usually a paid service at Rogers, but not at all telecoms — we’ve had free installations performed by technicians at various internet providers, including Bell, TekSavvy, and Cogeco. If you self-install with Rogers, there is no installation fee.

This new modem is called the Xfinity Gateway modem (Gen 4). Some users in areas where Wi-Fi 7 was launched early may have access to Wi-Fi 7 through other hardware, like the Rogers Xfinity Router or select 5G home internet plans in Quebec and a small footprint in Calgary. Others will now need to pay a premium for it.

Looking at the carrier’s main internet page as I write this, only its most expensive $120 plan includes the Wi-Fi 7 hardware without the upcharge. That being said, when I type in my address, the prices change slightly to make it appear as if I’m getting a deal (the top plan doesn’t change its download speeds, but the price goes to $150, and is now “on sale” for $120). Adding my address also removes the wording that describes which modem comes with which plan, making things even more confusing.

When I first started working on this story last week, it seemed like almost every internet plan could be upgraded to Xfinity Pro during checkout. However, at some point in my back-and-forth with Rogers, the company removed the option from all the addresses I’ve been checking around Toronto. Now, it appears that you will need to phone the company to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7/Xfinity Pro, which makes advertising the $120 plan on its website that comes with Wi-Fi 7 all the stranger.

There is an argument to be made that you’d want to have top-end home networks to get access to Wi-Fi 7 hardware, but the plans being offered in the spots I checked also cost $120 and came with 2Gbps download speeds, which should be enough to justify the benefits of the upgraded modem. Truthfully, I think everyone should just be on the modern hardware, but even Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are more than enough for most people.

When I take a step back, I don’t think most people will need Wi-Fi 7 over 6E anytime soon, but it does feel weird to charge for that upgrade and bundle it in with a bunch of other stuff that used to be free years ago, such as the installation and good customer support. That said, ever since Rogers ended its contract with Foundever, resulting in the layoffs of around 900 call centre workers, I have been seeing an increase in people complaining about the carrier’s support. Perhaps this upgraded support perk is more valuable than it should be.

Really, what’s the most interesting part of this subscription, although I’m not sure it’s worth $25 per month, is the cellular/battery backup system. This is quite impressive, but it has some limitations. The fine print on Rogers’ website reads, “Storm-Ready WiFi requires access to Rogers LTE cellular and [the] rechargeable battery backup supports up to 4 hours of power. During backup connectivity, Rogers Voice home phone service not supported, internet speeds up to 30 Mbps for downloads and 7 Mbps for uploads (up to 10/2 Mbps after 500 GB), and at all times when video streaming, download speeds of up to 3 Mbps per stream. ”

Roger’s support page says this will be a separate device that uses a 5G connection. This will also work as a Wi-Fi extender in your home. As cool as this is, it being related to 5G doesn’t make it any more powerful than your mobile hotspot. I’m not sure it’s worth a flat rate of $25 per month. Especially considering most people only suffer one or two short power outages per year. I’d expect this to be handy in remote parts of the country, but I also don’t expect those areas to have super-fast internet, which negates the need for the Wi-Fi 7 aspect of this subscription.

Overall, this appears to be a reasonably limited subscription for most, and if you really want Wi-Fi 7, I recommend buying your own modem and mesh Wi-Fi system to avoid using the options the carrier tries to rent to you.

Source: Rogers

Update 06/11/25 at 3:16pm ET: Added clarification about free installations to paragraph two.

Update 04/11/25 5:13pm ET: This story has been updated to clarify that the initial Wi-Fi 7 offerings that Rogers launched over the past few months uses different hardware to achieve Wi-Fi 7 than the new Gen 4 Gateway that’s included with Xfinity Pro.