Netpassage 15 / 15BR scalable broadband router review part 2

NetPassage 15 / 15BR broadband router

From Compex

Part 2

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Date: Sep 20, 2001  

Reviewer: Chris Kaminski

Score: 2/3

Web Site:Compex

Infinitate scalability

The most interesting thing about the Compex NetPassage 15B and BR is the 'parallel broadband' feature. This lets you connect multiple routers and multiple broadband carriers to your network, one router for each connection. The NetPassage then ‘load balances’ your Internet connections to give you a better network throughput. However, this feature is also the routers weakest point when you consider the actual implementation.

The Netpassage implementation is based on a default gateway principal. Each router acts as a gateway to a different broadband connection. Each computer on your network is assigned a default gateway – some on one broadband connection, some on the other. This might work for a small office environment where you need lots of little workloads distributed but it is not appropriate for the home power user wanting a wider pipe to the internet.

The NetPassage falls short for the home power user looking to surf, download files or play games faster. All of the traffic for a single computer is locked down to a single gateway. Distribution is on a computer level, not an Internet request level. General Internet bound traffic not distributed between the connections like solutions such as the Nexland turbo800pro and MidPoint connection sharing software.

Missing features

Missing from the the NetPassage is any sort of logging. Any attacks from the internet that are blocked are simply discarded and not logged.  With the adanced filtering that the router is capable of, I would have expected to see a log of filter violations too... Multi-NAT is also missing, a concern for people that want to host multiple servers of the same type.

Conclusion

Although this router stands fairly well on its own with only a logging weakness, it is advertised as a scalable router. I found the scalability style that the router offers to be inappropriate for the home environment when compared to other solutions that allow connection teaming / bonding.

At the time of this writing, there was no documentation that explained how the 'parallel broadband' feature worked, how to set it up, or how to use it.  Please referr to the Compex web site for documentation updates.

Netpassage 15 / 15BR scalable broadband router review part 2