It’s official! After several months of testing, Peplink is finally releasing new firmware, version 8.3.0. With this upgrade comes many new features as well as fixes. There’s quite a bit covered on this firmware so we’re going to only highlight some of these changes. For a detailed list of release notes, see here.
Among the new features Peplink is adding the following:
- SpeedFusion – Dynamic Weighted Bonding (DWB) made the default traffic distribution policy, and TCP Ramp Up mode added
- Peplink engineers have completed several tests using multiple types of WAN connections. They have made DWB the default policy for routing your SpeedFusion traffic because of the results seen. Faster speeds can be obtained due to the more intelligent detection of bad links and packet loss. Essentially, it is better at handling more diverse connections like cellular and satellite. TCP Ramp Up mode improves the handling of Upload/ Download TCP traffic, which is important because satellite connections like Starlink use TCP acceleration. This also helps with congested LTE networks. It is the initial duplication of traffic and allows for more bandwidth.
- Synergy Mode – Cascade multiple devices and combine the number of WANs to a single device virtually
- Peplink’s Synergy Mode allows you to use multiple routers as one. This requires one Peplink router with an active Care plan to act as your synergy controller. This will be your main router that all secondary routers will connect to. These secondary routers are known as the synergy devices. The first one you connect does not need a care plan, but any additional devices will. The connection between these routers is known as the synergized link. Once the synergy device is activated, it will act as a modem or client device without a management or configuration option. This instead will be handled by the Synergy Controller. Note that the controller will display all the Synergized Device’s WAN interfaces, including Ethernet WAN, Wi-Fi WAN, and Cellular. It also will NOT work with Virtual WANs. Use this where your main router may be limited with regards to its supported WAN connections. If you need more cellular connections, or something that supports WiFi as WAN because your main router does not, or you simply want to have one place to manage all your hardware, Synergy Mode can be a great tool.
- Virtual WAN on VLAN – Added Virtual WAN on VLAN
- If you’re lacking WAN inputs, you can create a virtual WAN on a specific VLAN. For example, you simply need to trunk a VLAN (for each WAN) on your main router, connect an Ethernet switch, and then connect multiple WAN sources to that switch. The main router then allows this connection to be used on the WAN or LAN. This can be helpful for those utilizing a High Availability (HA) setup because WANs are treated differently than LANs with HA. If the switch in this example were to fail, it would not be recognized. This feature allows it to be. It’s also helpful if you’re limited on how many cables you can run to your router.
- MAX Adapter – When the MAX Adapter is connected to a Balance or MAX device, it will become a Cellular WAN instead of a USB WAN
- This update makes it easier to recognize and manage your connection as a cellular one. Just like embedded modems, the MAX adapter will be displayed with detailed cellular information. Management of cellular settings such as the APN is now configurable.
- InTouch & USB – Supports USB to serial adapters
- With Peplink’s firmware version 8.2.0, they released a feature called “InTouch.” It allows folks to access IP based devices that sit behind their Peplink router. It works by leveraging SFC Protect (previously called SpeedFusion Connect), which means you must have an active SpeedFusion connection with data available. 8.3.0 firmware will allow you to connect to devices on the USB connection that are using a USB to serial adapter. This can be extremely useful for those who do not have a router model that has serial ports built in. Things that use RDP or VNC will now be supported.
- 5GH & Cat-20 Devices (product code contains -GLTE-S or -5GH) – Added 2x antenna mode for a cellular module
- These modems typically use a 4×4 MiMO connection per modem. With this feature, you can now choose either 2 antenna mode or 4 antenna mode and that’ll allow you to use your existing Peplink Mobility antennas and take advantage of 5G. Of course, this means you will lose two of your antennas so you might lose a little bit of performance and signal capabilities or band capabilities. Still, this is helpful for users that are just starting to make the switch from a 2×2 MiMO modem.
- Outbound Policy – Now supports client type as the source
- The outbound policy rules are a way to control how the outgoing traffic on your network is routed over your WAN connections. Prior to the update, you could only specify the source as: Any, IP address, IP Network, and Client’s Associated SSID. With “Client Type” as an option, you can now create a rule that tells all smartphones to use your primary WAN only. This can help alleviate usage on a possibly limited backup Internet connection.
Among the many improvements made, the one our team finds the most exciting is WiFi WAN has been added to the Balance 20X – just make sure you have a valid PrimeCare warranty. This Balance router is definitely becoming more versatile with this addition. WiFi WAN makes it possible to use a WiFi source as another WAN connection on your Balance 20X. This means if you have access to your neighbor’s WiFi network, you can use it as a backup if your own network fails to connect to the Internet. This of course is most helpful when your neighbor is using a different Internet service provider. If you have a mobile hotspot and need to extend its WiFi coverage and/or increase its device connections, WiFi WAN can help with that too. IP Forwarding is also now supported on WiFi WAN, in addition to BSSID steering on certain MAX models.
With regards to cellular, 5G devices now have signal threshold settings and carrier selection. Peplink has added Band Channel Width details, SIM card priority settings, and support for SNMP on UTRAN Cell ID.
Other improvements that we’re excited about include:
- GPS – An option to turn off GPS and GPS Forwarding services
- OpenVPN WAN – Added site-to-site VPN mode
- QoS – Added Application Queue – Bandwidth Control for Application
- USB WAN – When USB Ethernet adapter or USB Dongle is plugged in, the USB WAN will connect automatically (rather than having to unhide this option)
Some minor improvements were made with name changes. Those include:
- PepVPN – Now called “SpeedFusion VPN”
- SFC – “SpeedFusion Connect” is now called “SpeedFusion Connect Protect.” And “Home Sharing” is now “Relay Mode.”
Like with most firmware, there were of course some issues that needed to be resolved. Some that were covered include:
- Cellular – Cellular firmware might fail to upgrade on LTE-US devices
- Cellular – Device might not connect to InControl after upgrading the cellular firmware
- SpeedFusion – Dynamic Weighted Bonding might drop packets unexpectedly for handling bufferbloat
- SpeedFusion – UDP traffic might route to wrong sub-tunnel
- Balance 20X – Setup Wizard configured IP Passthrough instead of Drop-in Mode
- BR1 Mini HW3 – 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio might not work after applying new changes
- Cellular & 5GH – Cellular interface did not work on Verizon with custom APN settings on the device
- System – HTTP Health Check might fail
- System – YouTube blocking may not work
This firmware release supports the following devices:
- X Series EPX / SDX Pro / SDX / PDX / MBX / MBX Mini / 580X / 380X / 310X / 20X
- Balance 20X / 20 HW7-8 / 30 LTE / 30 Pro / One / Two / 210 / 310 / 310 Fiber 5G / 310 5G / 310X / 305 HW2 / 380 HW6 / 580 HW2-3 / 710 HW3 / 1350 HW2 / 2500
- MAX BR2 Pro HW4 / BR1 Pro 5G / BR1 MK2 / BR1 HW2-3 / BR1 Slim / BR1 Mini / BR1 Mini Core / BR1 M2M / BR1 ENT / BR1 ESN / BR1 PRO / BR1 IP67 / BR2 / BR1 IP55 HW2-4 / BR2 IP55 HW2-3 / HD2 / HD2 IP67 / HD2 Mini / HD1 Dome / HD1 Dome Pro / HD2 Dome / HD4 / HD4 IP67 / Transit Pro E / Transit 5G / Transit / Transit Duo / Transit Mini / Transit Core / Hotspot / On-The-Go HW2 / 700
- UBR UBR LTE
- Surf SOHO HW2 / SOHO MK3
- MediaFast 200 / 500 / 750 / HD2 / HD4
- SpeedFusion Engine SFE / SFE CAM
- FusionHub FusionHub
