Pre-purchase question about Balance 210 router. Is the Balance 210 performance equivalent to the Pepwave Max HD2 (indepent of 4G conectivity capacity) to manage and automatically switch between main and backup WAN connections?

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

Hello:

Can you help me to know if the Balance 210 performance is equivalent to the Pepwave Max HD2 (indepent of 4G conectivity capacity) to manage and automatically switch between main and backup WAN connections??

I have installed a Pepwave Max HD2 router connected to two WAN satellite connections, the main connection of 2Mbps have a typical latency of 800ms and backup connection of 512Kbps have a latency of 3600ms, without 4G required connection, since the site is out of coverage. Normally, the router only is connected in its LAN segment to a Fortinet Firewall, but sometimes the user have problems with their firewall which implies connect the router directly to the LAN network and manage 150 non-simultaneos users all the time. This router model was purchased by satellite provider advice. The solution requires fast and automatically switching from one WAN connection to the other one, only one of the WAN connections can pass data at a time, and the other connection should remain active and ready in standby status.

The general performance of this router Max HD2 has been good during the last year, and we have not configured yet special features as Bonding, IPsec or Speedfusion.

This time, I need duplicate this solution with the same conditions and user quantity, but the short solution delivery time and our location (Colombia) dificults purchase on time another Pepwave Max HD2, since the local Peplink partner only have available the Balance 210 and other lower router models in stock.

Can you advice the Balance 210 router as a good replacement or better of the Pepwave Max HD2?? Fits better for this scenary, the Balance 210’s Connection type options: Always-on and Backup Priority than the Max HD2’s Standby state options: Remain connected and Disconnect ??

My apologies by the long message.
Thanks,

2

In my opinion the Balance 210 is no alternative to a MAX HD2.

The MAX HD2 is a 4G LTE router with two LTE modems, two WAN ports and an USB WAN port, as you probably already know.
The Balance 210 is a router/loadbalancer with no LTE modems, two WAN ports and an USB WAN port.
This means you would have to use an LTE USB modem in its USB WAN port, since you already use 2 satellite modems on the Balance 210’s standard WAN ports.

I don’t think using an LTE USB modem is a reliable substitute compared to the LTE modems in a MAX HD2.
You could buy a license key to activate the third WAN port on the Balance 210, which makes it a Balance 310.
This enables you to connect an LTE router to the third WAN port, for example a MAX BR1 or another MAX model.

If you would like, I can check how long it would take to provide you with an MAX HD2 with an UPS Express shipment from Europe.

1 Like