I’m sure the B20X is fine, but’s it’s at a completely different price point (over twice the cost of the SOHO), so it’s targeted at a different part of the market.
@Alex , no, I’ve not tried the SpeedFusion app as my use case is simply for home (and connectivity to office resources). The cellular WAN is wasted on me because I live in a city with fiber-to-the-home service. But if I ever decide to live in a rural area, I still have a fallback. BTW, I appreciated the consistency of the Peplink web interface which made it easy to port my Surf SOHO configuration.
Hi Cassy,
I am interested to learn about the new router for the SOHO market. My Surf SOHO HW1 has been freezing every hour at times and needs to be regularly restarted throughout the day.
upgrade balance 20 to 1 Gbps throughput with same price and it’s ok !
A frozen router may be either actually frozen or looping. Since it is happening so often, I suggest connecting to the web UI and having two pages displayed side by side in different browser tabs.
- The dashboard page - to see what the cpu usage is when the router appears to be frozen
- The current bandwidth display to see if it really is frozen. This screen updates every few seconds so it should show the difference between between an actual stoppage and a cpu loop.
Do you have a timeframe yet for the SOHO replacement?
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Bonjour support.
I was quite happy with the Surf SOHO, until I found out that it didn’t support Bonjour. That forced me to upgraded to a more expensive router that did (Balance 20X).
How will this affect models that are subject to the vulnerability mentioned here?: Vulnerabilities Announcement - Bypassing Wi-Fi Encryption by Manipulating Transmit Queues
In other words, though these products are now considered “Legacy”, will they still receive security updates under firmware 8.3.x?
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So it’s been close to a year since this post and we are still waiting. Any news?
Hi Steve,
We’re currently still working on the new replacement to the Surf SOHO. We can extend an invite to you to be a beta tester If you’re interested in testing it out.
I’ll DM you with more details.
Best,
Zac
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Hi,
I’ve got a Pepwave Surf Soho Mk3. Still running the 8.2.1 as hate to fix things that aren’t broken unless there is a specific security update. Happy that all is still working well.
Would prefer to keep the current Soho going - even for a small annual fee as I’m sure we’re all trying to reduce E-Waste.
However, if this is not feasible, waiting with anticipation for the replacement.
I am not a network expert so it really would be helpful if there was a tool to take the downloaded configuration from the old Soho and transfer the settings to the new model when it comes out.
This old Soho is used for residential/work from home so would be good to keep our fragile little bubble safe. I don’t trust ANY other make of routers - so thank you up to this point and really hope the new Soho is a ‘Go’.
It really makes me cringe when I see other routers in peoples’ homes and especially businesses.
If you need a (not experienced in network but experienced in fixing/building computers) beta tester (based in uk), please email me.
Keep well.
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I did exactly that when I switched to a GB fiber connection; I replaced my Surf SOHO MK3 with the B20x
I’m curious what you’ve seen for throughput. When my ISP upgraded me to 1Gbps (download only, boohoo) I experimented with connecting a computer directly to the modem or connecting through the B20x. I got speeds in the mid 900s directly connected and in the 600s with the B20x inline. So, to my disappointment, I found that the 900Mb spec for the B20x was not real world.
It seems that if we’re asking for a 1Gb router, we really need to ask for a 2Gb router…
FYI, I recently started out getting only half the rated speed of the Balance One Core, 300Mbps instead of 600Mbps, on Ookla’s speedtest.net when it was reset to factory defaults (some features are known to use CPU and slow down Peplink routers). You can see in my post Are all Balance One’s running half speed on 8.3? that I eventually managed over 600Mbps with the help of some advice from others; “The key was using the Edge browser (Win 10) instead of Chrome, configuring speedtest.net to Single Connection instead of Multi Connection, and I did not log into the Balance One (the Dashboard display uses CPU). Selecting Single Connection severely limits the upload speeds for some unknown reason. Upload speeds increased to a high of 567Mbps on one of the Multi Connection tests.”
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It seems that your experience supports my conclusion as well.
I agree that some speed tests and environment sometimes return less than the Balance One’s stated 600Mbps. However, the point I was trying to make is that doesn’t necessarily mean the Balance One doesn’t meet spec if I or someone else can discover a test setup which meets the 600Mbps firewall throughput. Which I did.
Given what I have read in this forum, others have reached 900Mbps on the B20X. That seems to imply that they found the right speed test and environment. And that their B20X configuration is either factory default or is not utilizing features which slow down the B20X. You may be in the latter situation, using features that slow down the B20X. To prove things one way or the other, you would want to set the B20X to factory defaults, then figure out how to get 900Mbps (fast.com is another option to check out), then restore your B20X to see how it performs.
I wish Peplink could tell us how they conduct speed testing so we could try to reproduce that (unless they are using in-house tests they developed).
Typical download speed is between 750 to 850 mbps on myB20x. According to SpeedTest (app, not via browser), maximum throughput was 904. Upload is much slower, around 200 to 250, which I don’t understand because it’s supposed to be a synchronous fiber link. I’m running firmware 8.3.0.
With regard to specifications, I am of a certain school of thought. Specs should be achievable under normal circumstances. I don’t much care if the spec says 600 if it can only be achieved if I turn off all the features that I need. I find that kind of specificationing to be rather disingenuous.
The way I understand your trek in the matter; you were trying to test whether or not the device is functioning correctly (as the manufacturer expects) and if you can get any single test to show their published number, then you have confirmed correct operation. I can see how that accomplishes something. But it does not mean that you will get what you need in the end when you’ve turned on all the bells and whistles (and those bells and whistles are exactly why you chose the Peplink over another brand/model in the first place).
Let me be clear, I understand that speed tests, particularly over the wide open internet, are finicky and somewhat inconclusive. Just because you can ping a particular speed test node with a given result doesn’t mean that all of the internet is going to live up to that result. But I did find it disappointing that the b20x showed a 25-35% slow down when dropped into place and tested in exactly the same way. I believe that I would see a very marginal slow down with a $150 consumer router. Alright, I’ve said enough…
I wish Peplink could tell us how they conduct speed testing so we could try to reproduce that (unless they are using in-house tests they developed).
I will follow up and share with you our approach soon.
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Regarding the assessment of router throughput performance, our approach involved conducting rigorous testing utilizing multisession iPerf (a widely recognized network performance measurement tool), with data traffic routed from LAN to WAN.
Here’s a technical breakdown of our testing methodology:
- The setup was designed to be easily modifiable to accommodate multiple WAN scenarios, ensuring flexibility in testing various configurations.
- We were able to control the WAN actual speed without being limited by the internet service provider’s restrictions, whether it was related to TCP, UDP, loss rate, or other factors.
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