TP-LINK TL-R470T+ Load Balance Broadband Router 1 x 10/100Mbps WAN Ports 1 x Fixed LAN, 3 x Changeable WAN/LAN LAN Ports

Pros: I can't believe how cheap this router is going for, AMAZING load balancing, we ran a LANparty off of 3 cable modems with this and the speeds were excellent. This router is the best bang for the buck you can get and was extremely stable.

Cons: 100Mbps, but I have it hooked up to a 24 port gigabit switch so the WAN is the only thing that is on 100mbps. The settings can be a little confusing but after some tweaking here and there I was able to get it all right after about 30 min.

Pros: Excellent router. I have a customer with a tough environment and we tried a couple of different routers, but their network and point of sale system would occasionally go down. We have had zero problems after installing this router. Great router for the price range.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Unfortunately, it is hard to find a consistently reliable router with wireless built in. So if you need wireless you need to add an access point. If you are running important network based applications, this is a good choice.

Pros: 1) Does exactly what it's supposed to do, with high stability and reliability.

2) Multi-WAN capability provides for high network availability at a very low price point.

3) Flexibility: one dedicated WAN port, one dedicated LAN port, and three ports configurable for WAN or LAN.

4) WAN load balancing and failover capability.

5) Good user interface for configuration and status monitoring.

6) Flexible configuration and extensive security provisions.

7) High throughput under load.

8) Metal case and internal power supply.

9) Low power consumption. Runs cool.

10) Flexible port forwarding ("virtual servers").

Cons: All are relatively trivial:

1) Ports only 10/100 Mbps, which may limit future growth. Gigabit capability would be nice.

2) No rack-mount option.

3) No IP-based or protocol-based QOS (quality of service) functionality provided.

4) Flexibility of configuration can be daunting for users without substantial networking knowledge and experience. On the plus side, the factory defaults will be appropriate for most installations.

5) Can configure static routes, but cannot view the full routing table.

Other Thoughts: Problem free and rock stable over more than three months of operation. I just hope that any successor product will include gigabit ports. Highly recommended.

Pros: has taken over the whole network load of the office and hasn't missed a beat. A++ for TP-Link

Cons: none

Pros: No other device out there offers this level of features for the price right out of the box. The router is well constructed, with a heft to it that feels quality. It has a metal enclosure that I like, too many devices these days are using plastic enclosures. UI is intuitive, I really like the status display in the web interface that shows the WAN ports and if the links are up or down, as well as all pertinent network information.

Cons: Intergrated power supply. I worry about this failing, would have preferred an external brick that I could replace if needed. Not really enough of a con to take off an egg. Has a 5 year warranty so its really not a concern.

Pros: The router is so far so good, and the load balance feature is quite good as what I expected. Only the bad that I was surprised that the router has been used (or refurbished, visibly noticed) with a dusty and dirty power cord. Even the box looks originally sealed ouside.

Cons: No noticed so far.

Pros: All the features listed. Stable. I have been running it for about 5 months without an issue. Its coupled with 8 port Gigabit switch. Great user interface. Excellent firewall setup and options. This is a stable unit with all steel construction.

Cons: Doesn't support SNMP which is what I wanted. Not a feature to remove an egg for. 10/100.

Pros: RR does a pretty good job on its own to manage bandwidth. Lots of options, for 50$ really neat deal. I was able to load balance a 3Mbit DSL line and a 4G phone (tether). Mutiple session aware apps (Steam) can pull 4.4+MB/sec bandwidth on given situations. I get about ~20mbit on 4G.

Cons: RR doesn't work well for balancing gaming traffic if you're using a satellite/wifi connection that can be bursty with unpredicatable latency. Otherwise, it does a fine job - has been stable thus far.

Other Thoughts: If you are trying to Ghetto rig a 4G tether and 3Mbit ADSL line, this will do the job decently. Just don't put the WAN ports in failover mode -- RR bandwidth management is disabled -- but the default bandwidth management handles fail over natively.

Pros: I bought this to replace a failed trusty router that finally gave up the ghost. I wasn't even looking for the load balancing features which I later started using. This router is awesome! (I have V1 model).

Cons: There are a few tiny little bugs in the routing rule table but nothing that you can't work around.

Pros: I concur with all the good points mentioned in these posts. Also, there are 2 revisions to this model TL-R470T+. They are revision 1.x, and revision 2.x, and I mention this because 2 of the features that I needed are available only on the more-recent revision 2.x devices.

The revision 2.x models have at least 2 additional capabilities that the older revision 1.x does not have. These are fail-over capability, which the router calls Link Backup, and port re-routing (if that's the correct term).

With the Link Backup feature, instead of using the router for Load Balancing, you can instead set one WAN port as the primary WAN, and the other WAN port as the backup WAN. When the primary WAN goes down, the backup WAN is automatically used, until the primary WAN comes back connected again, at which time the router automatically switches back to the primary WAN. If you use more than 2 WANs, then you can program in various rules to handle your backup rules for all your WAN ports.

The port re-routing setting allows you to have something that comes in on a certain port be routed to a different port internally. An example of this could be so that you can have RDP access to more than 1 PC internally, as follows (and yes, I know that RDP is not very secure ;-):

If something comes in on port 3389, route it to port 3389 on internal computer # 1
If something comes in on port 3390, route it to port 3389 on internal computer # 2
If something comes in on port 3391, route it to port 3389 on internal computer # 3
If something comes in on port 3392, route it to port 3389 on internal computer # 4
If something comes in on port 3393, route it to port 3389 on internal computer # 5

Cons: None (so far).

Other Thoughts: Pokey, which Revision is your hardware (noted on bottom of unit, after the model number)? To set DHCP Reservations based on MAC addresses, if your model is Rev 1.x, go to the DHCP link on the left, then the Address Reservation link below that. If your model is Rev 2.x, go to Network link on the left, then LAN link on the left below that, then the DHCP Reservation tab at the top.