Frequently Asked Questions

SpeedFusion is Peplink's proprietary tunnel technology that combines multiple internet connections into a single, reliable data path. It runs between two Peplink endpoints: typically a router at your site and a FusionHub server (or another Peplink router) in a data centre or cloud. The technology operates at Layer 2, creating encrypted tunnels across each WAN connection and reassembling traffic at the far end.

Three SpeedFusion profiles exist, and the right one depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve:

• Hot Failover sends traffic down your primary connection and switches to a backup within milliseconds if the primary drops. There is no bandwidth aggregation, but failover is fast enough that most TCP sessions survive without dropping. This is the simplest and most cost-effective option for sites where uptime matters more than raw throughput.
• Bonding splits traffic across all available connections simultaneously, giving you the aggregate bandwidth of every link. If you have a 50 Mbps broadband line and two 30 Mbps cellular connections, bonding gives you close to 110 Mbps of usable throughput. If one connection drops, the remaining links absorb the load with no user-visible interruption.
• WAN Smoothing sends duplicate packets across multiple connections to eliminate packet loss. This is critical for real-time traffic like video feeds, VoIP and live streaming where even small amounts of packet loss cause visible artefacts. You trade bandwidth for reliability: the same data crosses multiple paths, and the first clean copy to arrive is the one that gets used.

Why does this matter? Cellular and broadband connections are unreliable individually, but collectively they can match or exceed dedicated circuit reliability at a fraction of the cost. A single 4G connection might drop several times a day. Bond three of them with SpeedFusion and you have a connection that effectively never goes down. Read our detailed comparison of bonding vs load balancing for a deeper technical breakdown, or visit our SpeedFusion configuration service page to see how we set this up for clients.

Balance and MAX serve different deployment scenarios. Picking the wrong one is one of the most common mistakes we see, and it is expensive to fix after the fact.

Balance routers are designed for fixed installations: offices, server rooms, branch sites, retail locations. They sit in a rack or on a shelf and do not move. They have multiple WAN ports for connecting broadband, leased lines and Ethernet-fed services, and most models include one or two embedded cellular modems as backup. The Balance range starts with the B One (ideal for small offices and remote workers, with dual Gigabit WAN and Wi-Fi 6) and scales through the Balance 310X, 380X and 580X up to the Balance 2500 and 5000 EC, which handle thousands of users across large enterprise sites. Balance routers prioritise Ethernet WAN throughput, port density and routing features.

MAX routers are built for mobility and cellular-first deployments. They are designed to be the primary connection, not just a backup. MAX routers prioritise cellular performance: more embedded modems, higher-category chipsets, external antenna connectors, GPS tracking and ruggedised enclosures rated for vibration, temperature extremes and vehicle mounting. The MAX Transit is the workhorse for vehicles and temporary sites. The MAX HD4 MBX is the top of the range, with four 5G modems and FlexModule bays for future upgrades.

Three questions settle it. Is this fixed or mobile? If it moves, MAX. Is cellular the primary connection or backup? Primary means MAX; backup behind broadband or fibre means Balance. How many cellular connections do you need? MAX routers support more simultaneous cellular links.

There are edge cases. Some fixed sites in rural locations with no viable broadband use MAX routers as their primary connection, bonding multiple 4G/5G carriers. That works well. Conversely, some vehicle installations with Ethernet feeds from onboard systems use Balance routers. We help clients design the right architecture before ordering hardware, because the wrong router choice creates problems that are expensive to fix later. Browse the full range of Peplink routers in our shop to compare specifications.

Marketing uses these terms interchangeably, but they describe fundamentally different technologies. Choosing the wrong one leaves you with connectivity that looks good on paper but fails when you need it most.

Load balancing distributes sessions across multiple connections. When a device on your network opens a new connection (loading a web page, starting a download, opening an app), the router decides which WAN link to send that session down. Each individual session uses only one connection. If that connection drops mid-session, the session breaks. The user sees a timeout, a failed download or a dropped call. Load balancing is simple, requires no remote endpoint and works with any router. But it does not give you aggregate bandwidth for any single session, and it does not protect individual sessions from link failure.

Bonding (SpeedFusion bonding, specifically) works at the packet level. The router splits individual data streams across all available connections simultaneously. A single file download uses bits of bandwidth from every link at once. This gives you genuine aggregate throughput: three 30 Mbps connections bonded together deliver close to 90 Mbps for a single transfer. More importantly, if one connection drops, the remaining links absorb its traffic instantly. The user sees a slight reduction in speed but no interruption. Ongoing TCP sessions, video calls, file transfers and VPN tunnels all survive the link failure without dropping.

The catch is that bonding requires a remote endpoint. Your Peplink router needs to build SpeedFusion tunnels to a FusionHub server or another Peplink router at a data centre. This is where the packets get reassembled into the correct order before being sent on to their destination. Without that far-end device, bonding is not possible.

For most of our clients in broadcast, live events and maritime, bonding is the right choice because they need both the aggregate throughput and the session resilience. For a small office with broadband as primary and cellular as backup, hot failover (which is faster to set up and does not require a FusionHub) is often sufficient. We cover this in detail in our SpeedFusion bonding vs load balancing guide.

Depends on what you want SpeedFusion to do. FusionHub is a virtual Peplink appliance that runs on a cloud server (AWS, Azure, Vultr, or any provider supporting KVM virtualisation). It acts as the remote endpoint for SpeedFusion tunnels, receiving bonded traffic from your Peplink routers in the field and reassembling it before forwarding to the internet or your private network.

You need a FusionHub if you want to use SpeedFusion Bonding or WAN Smoothing. These features require a remote endpoint to reconstruct the split or duplicated packets. Without a FusionHub (or another Peplink router acting as the hub), you are limited to Hot Failover between your WAN connections, which does not aggregate bandwidth or smooth packet loss.

You do not need a FusionHub if Hot Failover meets your requirements. If your use case is simply "keep the internet working if the broadband drops, using 4G as backup," then Hot Failover on its own handles that without any remote infrastructure. The router monitors each WAN link and switches traffic within milliseconds when a link fails. No cloud server required.

You also do not need a FusionHub if you are building a site-to-site SpeedFusion tunnel between two physical Peplink routers. For example, if your head office has a Balance 710 and your branch office has a Balance 310, they can form SpeedFusion tunnels directly between each other. One acts as the hub and the other as the spoke. This works well for organisations with a central site that already has good connectivity.

For clients who do need a FusionHub, we handle the full setup: provisioning the cloud instance, installing the FusionHub image, configuring SpeedFusion profiles, setting up monitoring and managing ongoing maintenance. We typically deploy FusionHub instances in London, Frankfurt and New York, but can place them wherever your traffic needs to terminate. FusionHub licensing is separate from your router licensing and is based on the number of concurrent SpeedFusion peers (connected routers). Learn more about our SpeedFusion configuration service, which includes FusionHub deployment, or get in touch to discuss your requirements.

PrimeCare is Peplink's bundled support and warranty subscription, included with most new routers for the first year (sometimes two, depending on the model and any active promotions). After the included period, you renew annually to maintain coverage.

It bundles several things that other vendors sell separately:

• Extended hardware warranty. Your router is covered for hardware defects for the duration of your PrimeCare subscription. If a unit fails, Peplink replaces it. Without PrimeCare, the standard warranty is typically one year.
• InControl2 cloud management. PrimeCare includes a full InControl2 licence for your device. InControl2 is Peplink's cloud-based management platform that lets you monitor, configure and update your routers remotely from a single dashboard. Without PrimeCare, you need to purchase an InControl2 licence separately.
• Firmware updates. Active PrimeCare entitles you to all firmware updates for your device, including new feature releases. Without PrimeCare, you may only receive critical security patches.
• SpeedFusion licence. On many models, the SpeedFusion bonding licence is tied to PrimeCare. If PrimeCare lapses, you may lose access to SpeedFusion bonding and WAN Smoothing, retaining only basic Hot Failover capability. This varies by model, so check your specific hardware.
• Peplink technical support. Priority access to Peplink's engineering support team for configuration assistance and troubleshooting.

For most organisations, keeping PrimeCare active is an easy decision. A renewal costs significantly less than a replacement router, and the InControl2 licence alone would cost more than the PrimeCare fee on many models. PrimeCare renewals are managed for all managed service clients, and renewal licences are stocked in our shop.

InControl2 is Peplink's cloud management platform. A single web-based dashboard to monitor, configure and update all your Peplink devices regardless of physical location. Particularly valuable for organisations with multiple sites, mobile deployments or devices in hard-to-reach locations.

Licensing is per-device. Each router or access point managed through InControl2 needs its own licence. Two ways to get one:

• Bundled with PrimeCare. If your device has an active PrimeCare subscription, InControl2 access is included at no extra cost. This is the most common scenario for newer devices, since most ship with one or two years of PrimeCare.
• Standalone InControl2 licence. If your PrimeCare has expired and you do not wish to renew it, you can purchase an InControl2 licence separately. These are available in one-year, two-year and five-year terms. This option makes sense if you want cloud management but do not need the extended warranty or SpeedFusion licence that PrimeCare provides.

Two tiers exist. Standard covers remote monitoring, configuration management, firmware deployment and basic reporting. Advanced adds SSID management for access points, captive portal configuration and more granular reporting. Most router deployments work fine on standard. Advanced is primarily relevant for large access point estates.

One thing that catches people out: InControl2 is a management overlay, not a requirement. Peplink routers function fully without it; you can configure everything through the local web admin on each device. InControl2 simply lets you do it remotely, at scale, from one place. One router at one site? Convenient but not essential. Fifty routers across multiple countries? Practically mandatory.

InControl2 runs across all our managed service deployments, and your devices can be added to our management organisation if you want us to handle monitoring. Prefer to manage your own kit? Our training sessions cover InControl2 administration in detail.

In most cases, yes. Organisations have been migrated from Cisco Meraki, Fortinet, VMware VeloCloud, Silver Peak, Cradlepoint and others to Peplink. The motivation is usually one of three things: cost, cellular performance or operational simplicity.

On cost: many SD-WAN vendors charge per-device licensing fees that escalate at renewal. Peplink's model (PrimeCare plus InControl2) runs 40 to 60 per cent less than equivalent Meraki or VeloCloud licensing, particularly at scale. Hardware is also competitively priced, with no hidden per-feature charges for VPN tunnels, firewall rules or VLAN segmentation.

On cellular: Peplink was built from the ground up around cellular connectivity. Competing SD-WAN products often treat cellular as an afterthought, a USB dongle or a bolt-on LTE modem. Peplink embeds high-category modems directly into the router with dedicated antenna ports, SIM card slots and carrier-specific firmware optimisations. For any deployment where cellular is primary or a critical backup, Peplink's RF performance is measurably better than products designed primarily for Ethernet WANs.

On simplicity: Peplink's admin interface is notably straightforward compared to Cisco Viptela or Fortinet. Configuration tasks that require CLI access and hundreds of lines of syntax elsewhere take minutes through the web interface. Not a trivial point. Simpler configuration means fewer errors, faster deployments and lower support costs.

Migration complexity depends on the current setup. Simple branch-office deployments with site-to-site VPN and internet breakout typically migrate in under an hour with minimal downtime. Complex deployments with application-aware routing, QoS rules and deep security integration get migrated in phases to avoid disruption. Common pitfalls are covered in our article on running SD-WAN across multiple sites. Considering a switch? Talk to us for a straight answer on whether Peplink is the right replacement.

Any standard SIM from any mobile operator worldwide. No carrier lock. Consumer plans, business contracts, IoT/M2M data plans, multi-network aggregation SIMs. Physical size depends on the model: most current routers take Mini-SIM (2FF) or Micro-SIM (3FF), and many ship with adapters.

For UK deployments, EE, Three, Vodafone and O2 (VMO2) are the common choices. Carrier selection depends on coverage at your specific location. Always test before committing, and for critical deployments use SIMs from at least two different carriers in separate modem slots. That gives you genuine network diversity: if one carrier has an outage or congestion issue, the other picks up the load automatically.

For international deployments, roaming SIMs or global IoT SIMs are the practical choice. A SIM that works on a single UK carrier will roam internationally, but the data costs are often prohibitive for anything beyond light usage. Global IoT SIMs from providers like Eseye, Wireless Logic or Pangea negotiate local carrier rates in each country and avoid the premium roaming charges.

There is also Alchemy SIM, our multi-network data SIM designed specifically for Peplink routers. Alchemy SIM connects to multiple carrier networks per country, selecting based on signal strength and congestion. It works in over 190 countries, supports private APNs, and comes with pooled data plans and no per-device contracts. For deployments spanning multiple sites or countries, it simplifies SIM management to a single provider and a single bill.

One gotcha: some carriers restrict certain plan types from being used in routers. Less common with business and IoT plans, but consumer "unlimited" plans sometimes throttle or block traffic from non-phone devices. Carrier selection and plan suitability are covered as part of our deployment service to catch these issues before they cause problems in production.