Peplink Surf SOHO MK3 Router | Entry level router for home users | InControl Cloud-Based Management | SUS-SOHO-T

This is a feature filled router for a home/ small office setup. It is plugged into the modem your ISP supplies to prove your Internet connection. Use the private network your modem provides as an additional layer of security for your internal network. The three antenna setup gives good coverage on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. There are 4-1Gbe ports for LAN connectivity. Throughput is good for up to 120mb/s.The firmware is updated regularly.ConsThe documentation is geared for networking professionals. If you are intimidated by setups on most consumer wireless routers, you will need help to get through the initial configuration. RouterSecurity.org has a good page on setup that covers most essential items.

A high quality router, with an easy management interface, and an easy to configure firewall. It is easy to upgrade the firmware, or to roll back to a previous version. Antennas, power source, and a short ethernet cable were included in the package. An external on/off switch for the WIFI would be nice to have, but fortunately it is easy to swith the WIFI on/off using the management interface.

Unlike the consumer equipment, the web interface is informative and responsive. It is easy to set up and works great. Additionally, I scanned the router and found no security issues; my former wireless router had unpatched security issues, and Netgear had no plans to upgrade the firmware. Meanwhile, Peplink still updates the firmware. Since it is enterprise grade, it stays connected for a long time; I have purchased this wireless router for both my home and a non-profit; neither unit has lost the connection, nor have they had to be rebooted. I am surprised this unit is not sold at office supply stores, which only sell the same consumer grade gear you can get anywhere else. I'm also surprised this unit isn't regularly reviewed by the computer magazines since it is a higher quality piece of equipment with greater stability than anything else offered at a consumer-level price point.Neither Amazon nor Peplink indicates this comes with antennas; Amazon suggests the purchase of antennas along with the unit. So imagine my surprise when there were antennas in the box. However, there were no setup instructions in the box -- no paperwork of any kind. I had to use my phone to get to the Peplink website and didn't find any instructions there either. Finally, I went to their community forums and got the instructions. (Use an Ethernet connection initially; browse to 192.168.50.1; UserId: admin; PWD: admin.)

I have owned these WiFi routers for quite a while, it is quite reliable. One feature is that it gives detailed bandwidth usage on a daily/monthly/hourly basis on a per device basis. This is very useful in a recent episode that our cable internet company notified us that we already exceeded the monthly data cap with 10 days to go in the month. We were scratching our head as to Why??? We were not doing anything differently. Reviewing the bandwidth usage data provided by this router showed a work laptop downloading tons of data during the night. We had no idea until we saw the bandwidth usage.

Short version:It's highly and easily configurable to a secure group of settings.Long version:Has options to change all settings I wanted to, to the way I want, without too many options I don't want available, and most of those did not default to settings I didn't like.Easy to change settings. The browser interface is easy to use for me as a not-techie (I'm comfortable making the changes I had to, have some basic understanding of which settings I want to change, what I want them to be & why, but IT, IM, networking... are not my areas of expertise.)A nice feature is having two copies of firmware, current and previous, so if an update messes something up, you can always reboot back to the previous working version.This is not a really high speed wifi router (if you need top speed, look elsewhere), but more than fast enough for me.I can't say how it compares on wifi range, as I won't be pushing its limits.