Realizing the Peplink One is a sealed unit, so this is just wishful thinking. I wanted to give the feedback in any case.
Would have been nice if there was an external antenna attachment. A triple-WAN (including 3/4g modem) gateway like this needs to be near the UPS system and Cable Modem. Where the AP part needs to be in the centre of the house. So ideally they need to be in two locations.
Getting another Peplink AP is ok but there’s still the question of power, network cables… If it was just a matter of running a single antenna wire then would get the best of both worlds.
Hi Mike, thanks for the feedback. I think the cable won’t be eliminated no matter we put the Balance One in the center of the house (the Balance One still needs to be connected back to the cable modem) or connecting another AP to the center of the house. Would PoE help in this case?
The Balance One needs to be where the wiring closet is. It’s got 8 LAN ports. Not to mention the 2 WAN ports. Which means no matter where I put it I’m looking at 10 network wires and a power cable. (then there’s the UPS part) So my office in the basement is the ideal location for the router, but not the ideal location for the WiFi AP. I would imagine anyone purchasing the Balance One would be in a similar situation… the ideal location for the router is rarely the ideal location for the antenna.
Now if there was an external antenna hook up. Then the router is where the router should be and I can move the antenna to any where, it would be one wire. In that case one could even run the antenna outside. Even better than that would be multiple antenna hook ups so you could run one to each floor sort of thing.
I realize PepLink has AP’s targeting that but would be nice if the routers with built in AP’s could at least have an external antenna hook up.
Any case just a suggestion. Bought the PepLink Balance One for it’s firewall and GUI so the AP was more a bonus… granted now that I’ve seen it’s management of the AP I’m hooked
The problem with the external antenna is the RF attenuation. If we have to run a length RF cable for the Wi-Fi antenna, that might make it either very expensive or the signal will still be very bad. Having another AP would be a better option.
