Update advice etc; compatibility with MESH network covering 8 mile radius etc

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

I have a new Balance 20 that doesn’t yet have the latest firmware preinstalled; as well as a Balance 210 due to be received shortly. Should I configure everything to the latest firmware before attempting putting them in an existing network…or does it really matter if there is a mix of firmware versions of Peplink Balance units within the networks to be connected. (currently new Peplinks running 5.3.9 or a little later version 5)

Please feel free to comment on the present setup and an addition of a Peplink Balance 210 router to the present networks. The anticipated improvements are Speedfusion; load balancing and failover in event of loss of one ADSL ISP line input.
Currently the networks are basically as follows:

one ISP modem at “Headquarters” (10M down and 800k upload) connected to a Linksys wrt54G (running dd-wrt) serving as DHCP router at say 192.168.200.1 gateway and a combination of wireless Motorola Canopy AP connected to router LAN port1 and a 4 watt Mesh wireless radio AP on LAN port2 of the router serving a dozen plus nodes over an 8 mile radius…and it works beyond belief.

as well as a second ISP modem at Head quaters connected to an identical second Linksys WRT54G (running dd-wrt) serving as a DHCP router at say 192.168.201.1 gateway and a similar sort of setup for the wireless service out of it LAN ports.

Now the upgrade plan is to use the Speedfusion feature of the 210 and bond the two ADSL lines (and get a 15 Meg download pipe and maybe about 1.3 M upload to improve mainly the VOIP telephone service that suffers on the current 5M/500k ISP line.

Please confirm these questions etc.

Can/should  a person leave the Linksys routers in the circuit as DHCP disabled "switches"; and configure the wireless mesh nodes  (Line of Sight; about a mile and a half apart) to a common Peplink 210 IP range. (say 192.168.200.xxx); and of course use the Balance 210 for DHCP server,DNS etc.......  OR .......how would/should a person leave at least one trusty Linksys 54G in the system and would it's position be ISP modem-->  Balance210-->Linksys router-->  LAN's..........as I could do with an addition LAN port or two 


Will Speedfusion work throughout the connected "wireless LAN" network of the mesh network over dozens of sqaure miles that are now served by present setup.

Please comment on how any VLAN’s and VPN’s should be setup.

How could the Balance 20 (which I was sorry to see doesn’t have “Site to Site” or Speedfusion capabilities be possibly ultilized in some future expansion plan of the mesh network (beyond the current 8 mile radius).

I’ve both received and given “free” advice in this lifetime and would deeply appreciate any attempt at help on what has turned out to be a working system that could benefit greatly from some bandwidth oomph. Thanks.

2

Or after second thoughts…is Speedfusion even helpful in this scenario.???

All I really want to do is get more bandwidth to the Lan ports at Headquarters (which the MESH radios can handle). Maybe there isn’t even any need for a second Balance router (except for maybe at end of a backhaul that might be needed to expand the network further than 8 miles).

and I guess for Speedfusion to even work; a person would have to have a second “Balance 210” for that to even work.

Still can’t think of a use for the extra new Balance 20

3

Hi,

SpeedFusion Bonding doen’t apply on LAN site. SpeedFusion Bonding/PepVPN should use in such way:-

Branch users —> (LAN) Balance 20 (WAN) —> SpeedFusion Bonding over internet —> (WAN) Balance 210 (LAN) HQ users

You should look for LACP if you want to increase bandwidth on LAN side. You also need to ensure your 4 watt Mesh wireless radio AP has minimum 2 LAN ports and support LACP.

Hope this help.

4

Thanks. I did place the Balance 20 in the networks; connecting the two WAN ADSL line inputs to the Balance and with no problem got the sum of both downlink and uplink speeds to “aggregate” at one of the four Lan ports connected to a computer

That is; speakeasy.net/speedtest reported nearly 15M down and 1.3M up from the 10M/800k and 5M/500k ISP provider modems.

Why aren’t the wireless radios and Mesh radios connected to the Balance 20 the equivalent of an extra long ethernet cable; and if the radios have the capacity; why wouldn’t throughput increase though the wireless LAN segment of the network.

I’ll certainly research the “LACP” suggestion; and any extra comment on the speakeasy.net/seedtest 15 Meg download increase would be appreciated.

5

The reason you are seeing those numbers on the speedtest sites is because they allow for multiple sockets when doing a test, so it is kind of like a false-positive. The results are correct in terms of total download/upload capacity, but if you were to do a single file transfer in either direction you would see the speed of only one of the connections.

The Balance is still beneficial because it adds additional bandwidth for the network as a whole.