Inconsistant Operation of PepLink Max Series/Surf SOHO

Product Discussion Pepwave AP & Surf
1

I’ve been using two wireless routers for years as a DMZ for my smart devices, like TV, thermostat, home automation, etc. Linksys EA3000 connects to the WAN, all my smart devices like the thermostat connect to the EA3000 with either cable or Wifi. Then, I’ve plugged a Linksys EA6900 into its port 1 and everything else in the house like computers, smart phones, pads, printers, etc connect to it.

To improve security, I purchased the Max Series/ Surf SOHO router to replace the EA3000 router. I have everything setup, but have three problems.

  1. Inconsistent performance. The connection to my email server keeps dropping. I’ll try to send an email and it will timeout. Maybe 2 or 3 times. Then it will eventually get sent. I am also having problems with connections to common websites taking a long time to come up, and/or timing out.

  2. Connection to my companies VPN. I am a remote worker. It was working last night around 8PM, but when I needed to get back on the VPN around midnight, the connection failed. Its still failing today. Co-workers have reported by email that VPN is working. I don’t know what changed in my configuration. I have tried connecting via WIFI to both the EA6900 interior router AND connecting to the Peplink external router.

  3. Samsung TV won’t stream video. It has a valid IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS servers, is connected to the Peplink WiFi, but won’t connect to Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, etc.

I like a lot of the features of your router, so hoping I can figure this out.

I’m not a networking guy, but very computer literate. Spent 30 years as a software developer, Unix Systems admin and Oracle DBA.

2

I’ve given up on this and went back to the factory defaults. Got it working, but not configured the way I want it. Thought I’d solve one problem at a time.

I think, from reading other posts, my problems with VPN and email was caused by the router scanning for Wifi WANS. One user reported it was causing 10% dropped packages. So, did not enable that feature and email and VPN are working fine.

3

Experience: The SOHO is a superb device for its intended purpose, but if you do not NEED wi-fi as WAN, then turn that feature off.
Our experience using wi-fi/LAN and wi-fi/WAN simultaneously is not so good.

4

WiFi Wan is fine on the SOHO so long as it is in range of a valid WAN network, but if there are no networks in range it will scan constantly which prevents the radio from serving the LAN side properly leading to 10%~ packet loss. This is a firmware flaw IMO and could be resolved by scanning on a much longer interval say 60 seconds, and should be adjustable, this is how competing products address the issue…

Peplink indicated they would address this and I had hoped it would be in firmware 7.0.1 but it is not. You should manually disable WiFi wan unless a wan network is with in range and functional until it is addressed.