Peplink Balance 30 Multi-WAN Router

Finally, a consumer router that works! I have 3 internet connections coming into my house: AT&T U-Verse DSL (5MB DN/.5 UP), Clear Wimax (15MB DN/1MB UP) & Verizon LTE (10MB DN/5MB UP) LAN extender. Verizon works well, but is very expensive for high-bandwidth customers. DSL is stable, but slow - especially upload speed. Clear is fast and unlimited, but their network gets over saturated easy (technically not down, but slows to a crawl). I have had other load-balancing routers, but they can't keep up with the dynamic nature of our internet connections. The Balance 30 works like a charm. In normal circumstances I load balance with Clear & ATT using Verizon as a backup. The balance sends traffic to clear more than ATT since it is a faster network automatically. When Clear latency increases it takes balance a bit to figure out the change then it starts sending more traffic to ATT. It works surprisingly well.A feature that doesn't get much attention is that the Peplink Balance can also be a private DNS server. I have a number of devices such as cameras and home automation systems that have private internal IP's, but are NAT forwarded externally. Using DNS and custom ports enables the apps to work seamlessly inside and outside of the home. Prior to Balance I had to maintain a separate server for internal DNS. Not anymore. Another nice DNS feature is that I can control what forwarding servers to use if a name cannot be resolved locally. Sometimes ISP's don't have the most reliable DNS servers, but you have to keep them in the configuration to resolve private IP's on their networks (e.g. video sharing, email servers, etc). Peplink also has a checkbox to enable using reliable public DNS for relay (e.g. google 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4).Let's get to the overlooked DHCP. Everyone takes this for granted. What router doesn't do DHCP? What makes Peplink different than any other consumer router I've seen is that it supports DHCP options. I have VOIP phones in my home that need be told where a TFTP server can be found for firmware updates and configuration. This server can be inside of the home or on another network (e.g. Site-to-Site VPN to my office where the TFTP server lives). This greatly extends the capabilities of this router for people that have a more complex network configuration.This router is not cheap, but it works. This router is easy to setup out of the box without touching the advanced features, but to get the most out of it the advanced capabilities cannot be beat.

Went to register this router on with Peplink, and it's out of warranty.

probably good but hard to configure and poor support

IPsec VPN only works with Cisco or Juniper routers. My corporate office has high level sonicwalls. I would give 4 or maybe even 5 if I could connect to corporate but without that VERY important function, it is only 1 step up from the 3 routers we had before with benefits that don't warrant the cost of the unit. I hope they upgrade their VPN functions to work with Sonicwall.

We previously were running Duolinks SW24 Vpn Router Dual Wan. Once we upgraded to dual 50mps connections we noticed it simply couldn't keep up. So our search began. At first we contacted syswan about getting a router, their service quality has dropped off and sadly upon review we weren't getting the stated performance out of the SW24. We began looking for another brand.Peplink popped up. All the features were there, as if spec'd for our very needs. The 3 WAN option, plus USB offers the best rollover options in the business. The price is half that of a competitors product and few offer 3g/4g usb support.Delivered, to setup and running was 20 minutes. We have multiple rules, port forwarding and wans to setup.After setup our network through put trippled. Where as the SW24 would max out speed tests at 24mps down, the Peplink maxes out our connections pushing nearly 100mps which is great. It's also a gigabit router so our total network performance has improved. Prior we had our gigabit switches all connected with only one 'net' connection to the Syswan to keep our internal file transfers at 1000mps.We have our dual 50mps connections as primary, and our DSL as cold standby. Testing of the system's rollover has shown good results.My only complaint is two fold:1- VOIP QoS isn't as straight forward as the Syswan product. While all the rules are in place to make VOIP, and related ports HIGH voice quality still drops upon large uploads - which we do regularly throughout the day. I've got an email into the company and will update when new information comes out.2- ports on the front is silly. All ports should be at the rear. While it's not installed in a true rack setup, we've got a very nice setup here. Cables running out the front is messy.VOIP UpdateThe solution to the voip issue is to restrict all traffic to wan1 and bind voip devices by mac address to wan2. It appears as though the system cannot share a wan with voip without QoS being a problem.

Searched hi and low for a decent soho multi-wan router. Found this unit that would run my verizon 4g device as one of the WAn connections. I am now able to use the 4G as primary with my slow as a turtle DSL as an emergeny backup. This is awesome! Using a UML290 which had some connection issues at first but Peplink responded to my issues with a new beta firmware load within a day. They were great! no problems since. this unit is much more stable than the low end routers I have used in the past. You pay for it of course but now that my wife is working out of the house it is a must. This particular unit has provisions for 3 WAN connections in addition to the mobile connection which really surprised me as I had thought it would only have two. In any event, it is rock solid and I would buy on again if the need came up.