Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
High-speed and high-availability broadband by combining four WAN links into one seamless connection.
While there are players in the networking market that go for the sleeker, stylish exterior – sometimes in favour of needed capabilities or a slick interface – Edimax largely seems to go for function over form. The BR-6641 4WAN + 1WAN Load Balancing Router is a case in point. That is to say, it’s big, bulky and very solid. Like an enterprise-class unit, but without the rackmount ability. Or port numbers.
This device obviously has just one function in mind: it controls multiple WAN (ADSL) links. If you want to distribute the capability over a network, well, then get another router and connect the single LAN port of this one to that. This product is all about taking those multiple broadband links and making of them a single, high-speed, manageable and highly reliable Internet connection – period. We tested it with four 512Kbps Telkom lines and found it to be quite powerful. The data stream is as fast as you’d expect of this manner of link; and if you pop one DSL line out of its socket, the failover intelligence seamlessly redistributes the load, capping the speed appropriately but not losing any active links.
Edimax has been criticised for incorporating only a 10/100 LAN, as opposed to Gigabit Ethernet, but 100Mbps is enough for many more than four of our fastest available lines here after all (at 4Mbps apiece), so I don’t really see the problem with it at this juncture. Rather keep costs slightly lower, I say.
The configuration options of this router are comprehensive; yet, lack a couple of features. There’s no Web-content filtering, for instance. You do get L4 bandwidth-management capabilities, a built-in DNS server, both inbound and outbound QoS functionality, multiple methods of traffic prioritisation, and VPN pass-through functionality. In order to set all of this up properly, though, you have to navigate a pretty confusing and daunting menu of options, not particularly well laid out or user friendly. Although the settings are best left to network admins, the default settings worked well enough.
This is really a piece of hardware for a small service provider/Web host, more than it is for a small business just looking for a more reliable Internet connection. It ‘makes’ our hit-and-miss local telecoms grid into an infrastructure that you can make uptime guarantees on. The value of that to your business, if this is your business, is likely worth a lot more than the investment in this hardware comes to.
While there are players in the networking market that go for the sleeker, stylish exterior – sometimes in favour of needed capabilities or a slick interface – Edimax largely seems to go for function over form. The BR-6641 4WAN + 1WAN Load Balancing Router is a case in point. That is to say, it’s big, bulky and very solid. Like an enterprise-class unit, but without the rackmount ability. Or port numbers.
This device obviously has just one function in mind: it controls multiple WAN (ADSL) links. If you want to distribute the capability over a network, well, then get another router and connect the single LAN port of this one to that. This product is all about taking those multiple broadband links and making of them a single, high-speed, manageable and highly reliable Internet connection – period. We tested it with four 512Kbps Telkom lines and found it to be quite powerful. The data stream is as fast as you’d expect of this manner of link; and if you pop one DSL line out of its socket, the failover intelligence seamlessly redistributes the load, capping the speed appropriately but not losing any active links.
Edimax has been criticised for incorporating only a 10/100 LAN, as opposed to Gigabit Ethernet, but 100Mbps is enough for many more than four of our fastest available lines here after all (at 4Mbps apiece), so I don’t really see the problem with it at this juncture. Rather keep costs slightly lower, I say.
The configuration options of this router are comprehensive; yet, lack a couple of features. There’s no Web-content filtering, for instance. You do get L4 bandwidth-management capabilities, a built-in DNS server, both inbound and outbound QoS functionality, multiple methods of traffic prioritisation, and VPN pass-through functionality. In order to set all of this up properly, though, you have to navigate a pretty confusing and daunting menu of options, not particularly well laid out or user friendly. Although the settings are best left to network admins, the default settings worked well enough.
This is really a piece of hardware for a small service provider/Web host, more than it is for a small business just looking for a more reliable Internet connection. It ‘makes’ our hit-and-miss local telecoms grid into an infrastructure that you can make uptime guarantees on. The value of that to your business, if this is your business, is likely worth a lot more than the investment in this hardware comes to.