TRENDnet AC3000 Tri-Band Wireless Gigabit Dual-WAN VPN SMB Router, MU-MIMO, Wave 2,Internet Router, Whole Office-Home WiFi, Pre-Encrypted Wireless, QoS, TEW-829DRU (Pack of 1)

Updated 5th January 2022: Initially the router was advertised with RouterLimits basic offering included. It worked for a couple of years, then RouerLimits basic offering went away, and I was left with either paying for RouterLimits or not having it. I see that from amazon.com features list, they've now removed this feature (free basic offering), however for a while it was there, while the feature did not work without additional payment. Now it's advertised as a feature that you can sign up and pay for and works with the router. IMO it is a similar feature to the TrendMicro offering that's included with many Asus routers, and some TP-Link routers. Other than this, so far, in home setting this router has been amazingly reliable.---------------------------Like:1. Simple dual WAN load balancing with common sense options built-in2. Plenty of gigabit Ethernet ports3. Only rack-mountable router with built-in WiFi 5 that I have found.4. Range great for wifi 2.4 and 5-1 (1733 Mbps)5. Price is affordable for home use in comparison to other products and comes out of the box with way more functionalities ( e.g. VLAN tagging, WiFi SSID to VLAN mapping, tri-band WiFi, easy Dual-WAN load balancing, subscription option for router limits IPS)6. USB 3 port for add-on storage7. Open source OS with potential for after market firmwareDislike:1. Range useless for wifi 5-2 (866 Mbps), unusable even at the end of a long open room (no interference 50 away RSSI shows -65), no signal in a different room (range is less than Bluetooth 4 even in open area)2. Router Limits basic was offered as built-in free feature for life when I purchased the router. Apparently the life ended, and this feature is no longer there. Paid subscription option for Router Limits is still available. While the basic option was available, I've used it and found it quite reliable/usable. I have not tried the paid subscription version.3. No option to use DFS4. No option for LAG (8x 1 Gbps ethernet ports)5. Software hard to use, shows lots of errors in the log but no way to resolve those6. Updates are rare and hard to come by (seen 2-3 updates so far that didn't add anything new, fixed security vulnerabilities albeit quite late)7. USB port cannot be used for LTE backup.

I run a small Software Engineering Consulting / Contracting company. I have 5 Static IPs from Comcast Business Account with a SMC cable Modem setup in pass-thru mode. Behind the SMC I have 3 routers; 2 non-TRENDnet routers each handling one of the Static IPs and the TRENDnet router handles 2 WANs / Static IPs. Internally I lave all the routers linked together on a 192.168.xxx.xxx NAT'ed network. The local network handles both wired and wireless devices. I have a total of 6 SSIDs (3 2.4hhz and 3 5ghz). Each SSID has a separate name, purpose and traffic. I have setup the channel for each SSID manually. All 6 SSIDs appear to be working without any interference. Enough background.I bought the TRENDnet AC3000 to replace a Netgear FVS318N that was hit by lightning. The TRENDnet is heads above the Netgear unit. I had no problems or issues bringing the TRENDnet unit into my network. Setup and programming the TRENDnet was far easier than any other router I have setup. I use port triggering, VPN for routeing into my network. All worked on the very 1st try.All my business / software development traffic is now routed thru the TRENDnet. The 2 5GHZ wireless bands have excellent range and the 2.4GHz band beats the range of all my other routers! The 8 Gigabit LAN ports lets me take full advantage of Comcast Business Account speeds.I personally do software development over a VPN connection everyday and I haven't seen any type on network dropouts.I haven't used their customer support yet. The programming was easy and straight forward. The manual seemed a little lite.I would highly recommend this router to any one who need all it's features and are too cheap to buy a Cisco! Excellent small business router...

Holly-Molly! This Router can put just about every router on the market to shame! Stable. Fast. Fast!! And STABLE!!!! 40+ devices and they are all working perfectly. No issues with using additional switch. Everything just works including dual source for the internet. Signal strength is great too, it goes through solid layers of steel and concrete. No missing features, tons of settings, no non-functional settings like in Comcast routers. It does not need to be rebooted regularly. Awesome! What else can you ask for? I am loving it!Cons: not so perfect interface: a few extra steps needed during setup and monitoring.

I gave this router a full 29 days of testing before I set up my return. I wanted to love it so much, but I couldn't. It fell short on the WiFi end of things.For starters, I'm a network engineer and generally love me a classic Cisco router, and this emulates the aesthetics perfectly. Clean box with no stupid plastic stuck on it, just a good looking device that says it'll do the job professionally.However, looks can be deceiving. Yes, the web interface was fine and it's nice to be able to queue up configuration changes to apply all at once, and the dual WAN features I did try out extensively between my fiber and coax based providers. Everything wired worked as expected.The WiFi is hot garbage.I'm sorry to but it really is. I took nothing shy of 10 readings per position of this router, moved it around my network closet/laundry room in 20 different places, aiming the antennae in a variety of arrangements... Nothing could resolve the fact that this router puts out the power of a cheese sandwich, ungrilled.Lucky I still had my old router I pulled out and tested along side it with a dummy SSID and lo, it was true, it was operating at worse signal strength than my 2015 one I was replacing.I was sad to box it up and return it, but it's just.... Not great at doing wireless, it really isn't. If it's going to be your wired network provider, this is a great choice, but pick something else if you need to have it run your wireless networks too.