1Gbps Throughput Balance 20

Hello,

I realize the Balance Two was released recently with 1Gbps throughput. But for a lot of small business owners, spending around $1,000 on a router isn’t feasible. I used a Balance 30 and 20 for years, but stopped doing so because the 150Mbps throughput became obsolete as fiber optic connections became available in my area. I currently have one connection running at 600Mbps and another at 1000Mbps. I love the product, as it does exactly what I need to allow me to keep working, use my VOIP applications, keep my security cameras online, and allow my family to stream and play video games without all of the bandwidth being hogged up.

Can or will something like the Balance 20 be updated to permit higher throughput speeds?

Exactly the same here. My balance 30 struggled at 50Mbps. I just bought a Balance One Core for a lot less than the new Two. My new One can do 500Mbps +, which I think is more than enough for the next decade.

My issue with going after the Balance One Core is that I’d be missing out on quite a bit of performance given my current connections.

When you start talking about WAN speeds of around 1.6 gb/sec spread over two WANs you are moving into an entirely different range of routers – and this is absolutely true with all manufacturers. Period. You have a significant investment in WAN capacity and I’m afraid a SOHO-type device won’t be too effective servicing that throughput. Both the B20 and B One are great routers but neither can service the WANs you describe.

Have you checked out the Balance comparisons at https://www.peplink.com/products/balance/model-comparison/, I wonder? If you want to fully use that 1.6gb of WAN throughput you are looking at something like the 305 or 310X. If you just had one of the WANs I might suggest the 20X – a very reasonably-priced Prime Care device (https://www.peplink.com/products/balance-20x/) even if you did not want to take advantage of the built-in LTEA modem and wanted to continue to rely on two terrestrial WANs.

But, having said all that, I admire you – I don’t know what we’d do with all that WAN capacity. There are not enough of us here to watch that many streams of 4K video simultaneously! :blush: I’d have to hire a few more employees pay 'em to watch TV!

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Ha! I don’t even know if ISPs have stopped throttling 4K content here. In my case, it isn’t an issue when my kids are in school. But dealing with everything that’s going on has changed things. My kids are taking online video classes for several hours a day. When they’ve done all of their studying, they are playing Minecraft or an assortment of other games on their consoles or PCs for a good part of the afternoon. With them being home, you notice the speed drop considerably. To the point where Minecraft specifically bleeds into phone conversations on Skype. Couple that with my wife’s usage of the connection. I can use all the speed I can get to continue to work in an unimpeded fashion. Also, the prices have dropped considerably due to competition. The 1000Mbps connection is going to cost me 21€ a month (around $25 to $30). I was paying that for a 3 down 1 up WiMax connection.

In any event, thanks for your suggestions.

Interesting. What a huge difference in cost for 1Gb where you are and here (USA). If we could get such a WAN for, say, $200/month we’d probably do so. And, that would be residential, not business; the latter would be much more.

Well, send a message back if you’d like to discuss the fitness of any particular model for your purposes. There’s a lot of expertise around here (and a number of exceedingly competent Peplink Partners in your part of the universe.) :wink:

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Excellent, thanks!

BTW, I’m paying roughly $125 for both connections combined. The 600Mb connection includes a landline (as does the other) with unlimited calls nationwide to any other landline. Cell phone coverage for two phones, unlimited minutes to mobile or landlines and unlimited data (it’s actually capped off at 500Gb), plus 120 channels, HBO, Tidal and Amazon Prime. Considering my folks are paying around $200 for a fraction of services (Optimum), I can’t complain.

Thanks again for all of your help.

No. I wouldn’t! ;<)

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FWIW: AT&T and its resellers are providing symmetric 1Gbps fiber to residences (at least in our neighborhood) these days. Though AT&T caps theirs at 1TB/month, resellers such as Sonic offer it completely uncapped (and additionally - no tracking). The cost is well below $200/month ($110 to be precise).

Which makes the Balance Two the router of choice (or ascending the Balance ladder further, if one needs/wants more sophisticated SpeedFusion features)…

Cheers,

S

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Hi Z. Not a surprise. Prices are heavily dependent upon location – and competition, most of all. In some of the areas where we work there is no good terrestrial broadband – only a WISP which is capped at 10/5 mb/sec and further characterized by fairly high jitter and latency. And in these areas the term “neighborhood” is a non sequitur. :wink: The “playing field” is certainly not level, huh?

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The service market is very fragmented indeed. We now have, in the US, a consumer-market set of offerings going from an (expensive) max of 1-2 Mbps in some markets, and an (inexpensive) max of 1Gbps in some other markets. A difference factor of a 1,000 makes the “consumer-grade” v. “enterprise-grade” distinction tricky, doesn’t it?

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Couldn’t have been said better.

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