Internal Universal Power Supply Load Balance Broadband Router (TL-R470T+)

I'm an IT administrator with 15+ years of experience in routing, security and network products. I have all kind of network certifications, from Microsoft, HP, 3com to Cisco. I worked with a huge ammount of network products, mostly from Cisco and understand pretty well the TCP IP stack and how to optimize network packets for medium to big network companies. I purchase this products just to see how works. I don't believe a less than 100usd product for load balancing. Fortinet have similar products but for 1000+ US Dollars. This item arrived quickly and I started setting up this thing with 2 WAN connections: one for DSL, another for cable. Setup was very easy, using the quick setup link (launched by default) and available in the left menu is a 30 seconds setup. The WAN1 and WAN2 ports were connected to the LAN ports on both: the dsl modem and the cable modem. I setup the wan ports to use dinamic ip so this device gather information from both routers (dsl and cable) and everything was done. I started making testing of load balancing: removing one network or another from the WAN. I lost internet for just 4 seconds..... and the unit make a Load balancing routing very quick and without failures. So just here, the device have 5 starts. But I can give this fine piece of equipments more starts if available, because have an extreme tune of tcp routines. The internet on my computers (dell pc, dell laptop, blackberry bold, ipad, galaxy s3, slingbox, xbox, etc) are now pretty fast and with a 500% improvement on response. For some reason, seems like if this device get packets from both WANS at the same time... this do something out of this world and put my internet in a different scenario. I will use this device for some small bussiness to keep internet always up and running because the dependency of internet for some cloud services like carbonite, dropbox, hosting email and remote access. This will be a premium product, at low cost. For home, I will use it just for the amazing premium capabilities. Having up to 4 load balancing internet connections with this amazing network routing capabilities at this price is just a golden gift. Take it. TPLINK: GOOD WORK. Update: october 30, 2013 I installed about 4 of this devices with some clients. Have no issues at all in terms of load balacing and internet redundancy. I was unable to setup the device in some scenarios to allow simple port map or application forwarding. We test a lot and contact tech support but we was unable to determine the cause of the problem. One thing I liked from this product is you can make changes in the web interface and apply them without the need of system restart. This is pretty cool!. You can change almost everything (network settings, filters, passwords, optimization settings, etc) and click apply.... this is all! Another good stuff is the unit don't requires a power adapter because the power supply is internally built. This is good stuff as well. I like this product.

I have had this router for a week and am very, very impressed. I am using it to load balance (and provide redundancy) between a satellite internet connection and a 3G/4G internet connection in a rural area where satellite and 3G/4G are my only internet options - and both are unreliable. I wanted certain traffic to go via 3G (low latency) and most traffic to go via satellite (lower cost) and redundancy as both connections are really flaky (bad weather, infuriated gods). It was pretty easy to configure - and surprisingly easy to configure some of the more advanced features (load balancing, online detection, policy-based routing, static routes etc.). And unlike Linksys, Netgear and D-Link products in general, this thing actually works and does what it says it will do. Great value, great product. My only criticism (perhaps unfair) is that the CLI is not documented and I really wish there was a way to query throughput stats via the CLI (to monitor throughput in another program via a telnet connection/query) - but that's not important for most people. In all, if you're after redundancy and load balancing (and more) for 2-4 WAN connections, this router delivers what $150++ routers deliver. EDIT/UPDATE: I have had this router working for 3 weeks and it has performed flawlessly. I've implemented Load Balancing, Traffic Control (QoS), Policy Routing, Static Routes and all work exactly as expected. My setup routes online games traffic, DNS requests and VPN/PPTP traffic via the 3G/4G connection and routes other traffic via the satellite - and because those rules are setup via Policy Routing the satellite takes over if 3G/4G goes down - and vice versa. The result is a much more usable, fast and reliable rural internet solution. Another bonus is that I've been able to limit device bandwidth usage as I have lots of bandwidth hungry users - so rather than Netflix and other services consuming all the available bandwidth (and plowing through my ISPs' usage caps) I can now constrain video to SD quality (via Traffic Control limits), and allow my AppleTVs to work at higher quality resolutions. A shortcoming is perhaps that other routers' QoS/Traffic Control give you more control over the types of traffic and purport to be able to control bandwidth for specific applications (i.e. Netflix, games, etc.), rather than by device/IP but I can live with that shortcoming. Another shortcoming is that the load balancing is fairly simplistic: it simply spreads the traffic demand across the WANs based on ratios. It'd be great if there was the option to base load balancing on prioritized capacity (i.e. if WAN1 bandwidth is consumed, start routing traffic to WAN2) but again, not a huge issue. In all, this is a great router. It has enabled me to reduce my internet bills enormously and dramatically improve reliability with my limited networking skills!

Installation was very easy -- Subnet Mask, Gateway, and MAC address were auto-recognized, and due to the helpful reviews I was able to configure the other router settings and get going without difficulty. Some of the menus in the browser-based administration interface are a bit opaque, but nothing too difficult. Being a network engineer would be helpful for the advanced options. My setup is Dynamic IP for both WAN1 and WAN2 (WAN1 is a DSL connection, and WAN2 is a cable modem connection). Problem # 1: when I unplug WAN1, the router does indeed switch to the backup WAN, which is WAN2, for which I am happy. The problem is it takes about 20-30 seconds to kick in. Is there a work-around for that so there is no delay? Problem # 2: a much more serious problem is that on the Status tab, every morning I see that WAN2 has disconnected in the middle of the night (according to the logs), and does not automatically reconnect. So I have to go to Network, WAN, WAN2, Connection Type Dynamic IP, and click on Obtain. At that point, WAN2 reconnects and stays connected until the middle of the next night. In the morning, same thing -- WAN2 is disconnected and I have to manually reconnect it via the procedure outlined in this paragraph. Settings I'm using: In the administration interface "Advanced" "Load Balance" I have "Enable Application Optimized Routing" unchecked and "Enable Bandwidth Based Balance Routing" unchecked. Under the tab "Link Backup" I have Mode set to Timing (could have selected Failover, but I did not). In the same tab the List of Rules is: Primary WAN WAN1, Backup WAN WAN2, Mode: Backup when any primary WAN failed, and Status: Active. * * * After setup, I did some testing. With WAN2 showing disconnected on the status page (as it does every morning), and WAN1 connected, I pulled the ethernet connection from WAN1. Low and behold, after about 15-20 seconds, WAN2 connected, so I assume it's working as intended. Even though WAN2 shows disconnected, when WAN1 "breaks" WAN2 reconnects and performs. As to the issue of being down 15-20 seconds during the handoff between the 2 WANS, I believe there's a way to get around that, and a reviewer discussed it (NorCal tech guyon December 12, 2013); specifically, he said: "There are various ways you can configure the load balancing between the two WAN connections. Initially I set it up as a failover system. When my cable connection goes down the DSL connection then goes active and is used to provide internet. As it turns out this is a non-optimal implementation because when primary WAN failure is detected the router then has to first connect to the secondary WAN device, get an IP address and wait until the connection is stable. This process, as it turns out is not seamless, and in my case took about 20 seconds. Not good enough!" My comment: that is exactly what I found, 15-20 seconds to reconnect. His solution was: "So I reconfigured the TP-Link's load-balancing to sharing the internet load between the two WAN ports. This works seamlessly but some devices/processes end up using the poky DSL connection based on random assignment. This might not be noticeable for an email or even web access but for Netflix or a large file download this is a problem. So I took the additional step to specify that all local network hosts should only use the primary internet connection. The result is basically "unfair" load balancing. Everyone always uses the fast connection unless it becomes unavailable and in that case everyone uses whatever connection is available, namely the secondary WAN connection. This works much better and faster than "explicit failover." In most cases I do not notice when the primary WAN goes down and virtual switchover occurs. And the switchover back to from secondary to primary also works seamlessly. Very nice indeed." My comment: Unfortunately, his instructions were not specific enough for me to implement, and I was afraid of "breaking" a working setup. There are a number of steps you have to take for load balancing. Here's what T-Link's browser interface says when you want to load-balance: Note: 1. To make "Bandwidth Based Balance Routing" take effect, please first configure WAN bandwidth on "Network"->"WAN" page. 2. The WAN port traffic ratio will be equal to the preset bandwidth ratio of each WAN port after "Bandwidth Based Balance Routing" of the port is enabled. 3. If the bandwidth ratio of WAN1 and WAN2 is set as 2:1, the traffic ratio of WAN1 and WAN2 will approximate 2:1 after "Bandwidth Based Balance Routing" of WAN1 and WAN2 is enabled. 4. "Bandwidth Based Balance Routing" cannot be applied to the secondary connection of dual-access. I wasn't comfortable dealing with all that, because when go to the Network-WAN page, it's not entirely clear how to set the values. NorCal tech guy's additional comments on setting up the "unfair load balancing" were again beyond my capabilities. So 5 stars for performance, but if you're not a network guru or an experienced IT administrator the advanced features are a bit daunting, both from the browser interface and the manual, both of which I have studied extensively. I credit fellow reviewers for providing so much information for my setup success; thanks for that. Finally, once you have the router up and running to your satisfaction, be sure to export your savings in case any future experiments go badly. From the browser interface: Maintenance - Management - Export and Import, then click the Export button.

This is for the fast ethernet multi-wan router. Absolutely useless. At first glance, the GUI is snappy, it's got tons of processing power and everything worked as it should initially. I learned after screwing with it for hours that you have to restart the thing after doing port forwards, even though it said the settings were saved and said nothing about needing a restart. I'll chalk that up to being my fault. Might even be in the instructions. The problem is that it can't hold a connection to a DSL modem to save its life! I've got a Netgear wireless router that's been doing all the routing for the house for probably 5 years now. Before installing this, it had an up time of 468 days! Dropped connections were rare, but they happened sometimes. The real issue was the lack of internet speed due to our ISP, and it's the fastest connection available here, so I chose to have a second DSL line installed and went to work looking for load balancing. This TP-Link can't even handle the one WAN connection. I'll go to bed, wake up a few hours later to the internet being down. Went to work, and within two hours the internet had dropped again. Came home, checked logs, and it was firing off an error about a connection failure on the WAN. Restart the modem, connection comes back. Couple hours later, dropped again. Tried cloning the mac from the modem, tried cloning the mac from the old router, no help. Tried tons of different configurations. No go. Drops like a fly after a few hours, and doesn't come back without physically turning something off. Hooked the modem back up to the old Netgear and we're back to being solid as a rock. Absolutely ridiculous. Hate that I wasted at least 8 hours troubleshooting this piece of garbage. Spend the extra cash and stay away.

This router absolutely rocks -- especially given the cost. I have an unreliable, very high-speed cable connection and a very reliable poky DSL connection. The cable connection drops maybe 3-10 times in 24 hours and usually reconnects within 5 minutes but on occasion takes an hour or more to reconnect. I have previously used a dedicated Linux box to implement a failover router but the box itself was the source of maybe 1/2 of the internet drops. So, I have been searching for an alternative multi-WAN router. I have initially overlooked this router since it does not explicitly claim to be a dual-WAN router. That's because it can be configured to be up to a 4-WAN router. I think the box is fairly simple to configure if you have basic networking skills. It took me about 1 hour to get everything configured as I like. Setting up WAN connections was simple. My primary WAN port is directly connected to the cable modem. My secondary WAN port is downstream from another wireless router (configured with DHCP but on a different subnet) that is fed by the DSL modem. While the secondary WAN port topology might be undesirable (cascading routers) it actually works just fine (whenever failover occurs). I need the DSL connection to have its own router and subnet for reasons I won't get into here. There are various ways you can configure the load balancing between the two WAN connections. Initially I set it up as a failover system. When my cable connection goes down the DSL connection then goes active and is used to provide internet. As it turns out this is a non-optimal implementation because when primary WAN failure is detected the router then has to first connect to the secondary WAN device, get an IP address and wait until the connection is stable. This process, as it turns out is not seamless, and in my case took about 20 seconds. Not good enough! So I reconfigured the TP-Link'sload-balancing to sharing the internet load between the two WAN ports. This works seamlessly but some devices/processes end up using the poky DSL connection based on random assignment. This might not be noticeable for an email or even web access but for Netflix or a large file download this is a problem. So I took the additional step to specify that all local network hosts should only use the primary internet connection. The result is basically "unfair" load balancing. Everyone always uses the fast connection unless it becomes unavailable and in that case everyone uses whatever connection is available, namely the secondary WAN connection. This works much better and faster than "explicit failover." In most cases I do not notice when the primary WAN goes down and virtual switchover occurs. And the switchover back to from secondary to primary also works seamlessly. Very nice indeed. There was still a problem however because the WAN failure detection as pre-configured is a actually a "connection detection." That's fairly useless since the upstream devices remain connected but fail to be able to provide internet. It's possible and easy to reconfigure failure detection by specifying a ping to an external host. This results in nearly instant failure detection and detects the correct type of failure. One issue is that my ATT microcell device does not work properly when connected to the router. This is a problem that has been discussed on the internet. I am not aware of a solution. I simply circumvent the problem by connecting the microcell to the DSL outer upstream of the TP-Link router. The microcell is not affected by the TP-Link and works fine. It sits on the more reliable connection and does not really benefit from a faster connection -- so all is well. Only one annoyance remains and it is minor. In the above described setup I have not found a way to access the upstream DSL router via the main network. I can access the cable modem because it sits on the WAN port that is used by default but I can't override the load-balancing bias and connect to the secondary WAN port unless I am currently in a failure mode and all traffic has moved to the secondary WAN port. No big deal but a bit irritating.

This is pretty sweet - for 50 bucks, the TP-LINK joins multiple Internet connections into one. But it has some serious issues: 1. Default IP addr. conflicts with the DSL modem it's attached to (fix is to re-assign manually) 2. Thinks all WAN ports are connected, even when they are actually disconnected from the Internet (see below for fix) 3. YouTube videos won't play on one of our machines when both WANs are active. Disabling all Chrome extensions does NOT fix the issue. But it works on other machines. (It also works on this machine if a) the TP-LINK is bypassed, or b) one of the internet lines hooked to it are down/disconnected.) It's a great value to be able to hook up two Internet connections and have the device fail-over to the working one if one fails. But this device goes further by taking turns sending traffic to one Internet connection, then the other (more on this below). If one fails, it still uses the other(s). What it DOES: + Makes several Internet connections look like a single connection to your local network (LAN) + For each request, chooses which Internet connection to send it through + Although this is a router, that part can be ignored if all you want is a way to join multiple Internet connections + Allows not just 2, but 4 (!) Internet connections to be joined + Fails over immediately to the working connections, when one fails (goes down, is unplugged, etc.) + Load-balances all active Internet connections (using either round-robin, or load-based) Round-robin just alternates between the active connections. Load-based balancing uses the max speed of your connections (you must enter the values in Kbps) to assign internal requests to active Internet connections connected to the TP-LINK. What it does NOT do: - create a single fast Internet connection This device doesn't do bonding. It will not make any single download faster. It will not make videos load or play faster. It just allows one tab of a browser to use the full bandwidth of one of your Internet connections, while another browser tab (on the same or different machine) to use the bandwidth of one of your other (randomly-assigned) Internet connections. (See below for what this really means.) Products that join multiple Internet connections into one cost over two grand and only work in pairs. That is, you need two of them - one on each side of the connection. This will only work if you control the other side of the connection, such as if you're joining two offices and can put one of those expensive boxes on each end. - work right out of the box It's quite possible it could work out of the box for you. It didn't for me, because there was a conflict between the DSL modem and the TP-LINK IP address. The TP-LINK did not notice this or correct it. Its "Easy Setup" just ran forever, without finishing. It may have also had something to do with needing the latest firmware. I updated before I found the IP conflict and got it working. Things I did to get it working: 1. Updated the Firmware Google "TL-R470T firmware upgrade" then download this file: TL-R470T_V2_130116.zip (the version they're selling on Amazon is V2) 2. Change the IP address There are lots of other features that I don't require, as I plug this into a more-capable router. However, it does offer some form of QoS, DoS defense, user/group connection/bandwidth limits, and other such features that could be used to set up an access point for hotel guests or coffee shops, for example, without requiring another router behind this one. It works so well for the price, that I wanted to give it 5 stars, but removed one star for the poor default setup and confusing UI; and another star because of the lack of tech support: - There is a "24/7" phone support line, but if you don't press 1 on the keypad every 30 sec. while holding, IT HANGS UP on you - The tech support is non-native English speaking which makes it difficult to communicate (lots of repeating yourself and asking the same) - The e-mail tech support takes 1-2 days to respond, and when they do, it's very basic suggestions, like "does your Internet work if it's not connected to the TP-LINK?". This is despite having explained that it does in the original message. So if you are proficient enough to figure it out on your own, or lucky enough to have everything work out of the box, this seems to be a great load balancing router for the money. My Internet connection speed is between 3 and 20 MBPS at any given time and I didn't not notice any slowdown going through the TP-LINK. It remains to be seen how it performs with several higher-bandwidth devices connected. But one final caution: The TP-LINK pings the router it's connected to, rather than the Internet. So it continues to use all links that are connected, even though the Internet connection goes down! This is maddening, but there is a manual fix: The TL-R470T+ (v2) thinks all WAN ports are connected, even when they are actually disconnected from the Internet. To correct this, set the "ping" to Manual and choose the IP address of a server on the Internet that you trust to be up at all times: Maintenance>Diagnostics>Online Detection tab.

I've worked in enterprise IT for more than a decade so I've had my fair share of Internet load balancers. Most of the home devices that supported redundant Internet connections were more for failover, that is, the secondary Internet connection was not used unless the primary one failed. To get full load balancing capabilities you had to use one of the enterprise products that could cost from $250 and up starting with just two fixed Internet ports. So when I came across this device I wasn't sure if it would really do what it said it would, even with all of the good reviews. Happy to say that it does exactly what it says, and does it well. Here are some of the things that I like about this device. > Surprisingly easy to set up out of the box. It comes pre-configured for two Internet ports, but you can have up to four. A wizard pops up on first connect and prompts you for information to set up your two WAN ports and that's it - you're connected. You will need to go to the WAN configuration to set up the bandwidth for each WAN to ensure proper load balancing, but if you have equal bandwidth on both links, that's not required. > Supports DynDNS and other dynamic DNS services and virtual servers. This is important for me as I have an internal server that I use to back up my websites every night. > Monitors the WAN links. Some devices look for the WAN link to fail, that is go offline, but this devices pings an IP from each link, so if the pings fail, it considers the link as failed and routes all connections on the other link. > Built-in firewall and URL filtering. Good for any home, although it would be nice to have time-specific URL filters instead of just time-specific firewall rules. I want to block sites like facebook during the day but leave access on at night (Facebook kills my productivity during the day!). > Nice metal case and sturdy feel. I know some of the lower cost enterprise load-balancers to be made of plastic, but this feels very rugged and not like a home device at all. I hope it means that the internal components are tough as well. Overall I am pleased with my purchase and would recommend this to anyone looking for an affordable load balancer for their home or home office. For the office you might look at the other load-balancers in the TP-Link series.

I got this router To test it and hopefully save money. I live out in the country and our only internet option is Verizon 4G LTE. we have smartphone with tethering (unlimited data plans) and I have a verizon mifi hotspot via Millenicom with 20GB a month, I also have a static IP with this service. for me this was easy but i have worked in the computer network field for 11 years, here is how i did it - i always try and follow the KISS method) The Millencom is to give the House internet while we are not home and for viewing our security cameras and such. also light surfing. we use our phone to watch movies and such on. setup (physical) WAN1 is connected to a Cradlepoint CTR35 that connects to the MIFI hostspot (via wireless). WAN2 is connected to a sapido BR071N That tethers to our phone via USB (can also use wireless but i like USB better) LAN5 connect to my linksys 610N router for the LAN This router is configure so WAN1 is the backup and WAN2 is the primary. so if our phones are tethered, it uses that (unlimited) connection, and if not it uses the Millenicom (20GB limit) connection I just got this setup today but so far it has been rock solid, connecting our phone it takes about 1 minute to switch over, and disconnecting about the same (not bad for $50-60 router) To set up the Router login set up for 2 wan ports under network>wan click (2) then advance > Load Balance > Link back (tab) click wan1 and click the button to add it to a primary or backup same for wan2 Mode: = failover Failover: top one (this really don't matter if you only have 2 connections) status: = active CLICK ADD in the upper right to add the rule!! should look like this List of Rules No. Primary WAN Backup WAN Mode Effective Time Status Action 1 WAN2 WAN1 Backup when any primary WAN failed --- Active NEXT Maintenance(left menu)>DIAGNOSTICS > Online Detection (TAB) Port = wan1 Detecting: = ACTIVE Mode: = MANUAL PING: = you need an IP that can always be pinged (I used the DNS from my static, but you can use anything, I recommen using opendns server 208.67.222.222 DNS:= same as above, you need a dns server, best is to use open DNS 208.67.222.222 Port: wan2 Detecting: = ACTIVE Mode: = MANUAL PING: = you need an IP that can always be pinged (I used the DNS from my static, but you can use anything, I recommend using opendns server 208.67.220.220 DNS:= same as above, you need a dns server, best is to use open DNS 208.67.220.220 TEST: connect your backup, does it work can you ping google? can you load web pages? email? connect your primary, does it switch over?(Maintenance(left menu)>DIAGNOSTICS > Online Detection (TAB)) (use "what is my ip, your ip will change) also does it work? can you ping google? can you load web pages? disconnect back up, everything still work on primary test a few times and you should be good ******note**** For some reason I had to add DNS server to the NETWORK>WAN>WAN1(tab) or WAN2(tab) otherwise i could ping an IP.............BUT NOT web address.... I dont know why, because it has the DNS in there but for some reason it don't switch over correctly.