Published 13 May 2026
There is a moment in every Peplink sales conversation where the prospect stops nodding politely and starts paying real attention. It is not when you show them a data sheet. It is not when you explain SpeedFusion bonding with a whiteboard diagram. It is when you pull a router out of a Pelican case, power it up on a battery, bond two cellular connections in front of them, and pull the SIM out of one while a video call stays connected without a single dropped frame.
That is what a demo kit is for. It turns an abstract technology conversation into a concrete, visceral demonstration that the prospect can see, touch, and stress-test themselves. A good demo kit closes deals that PowerPoint decks never will.
This article covers everything you need to build a Peplink demo kit that works reliably in the field: the hardware, the SIMs, the antennas, the power strategy, the software tools, the demo scenarios to rehearse, and the mistakes that will embarrass you if you do not plan around them.
Choosing the primary router
The demo kit needs a Peplink router at its centre. You want something portable, cellular-first, and capable of running the three core demo scenarios (bonding, failover, and WAN smoothing) without any external infrastructure beyond a cloud FusionHub endpoint.
Two devices work well for this purpose, and the right choice depends on how you plan to use the kit.
MAX Transit Duo Pro
The Transit Duo Pro is the most popular choice for demo kits, and for good reason. It has two embedded cellular modems, which gives you two independent WAN paths for bonding and failover demos without needing any Ethernet or Wi-Fi WAN connections. It is small enough to fit in a laptop bag. It draws around 18W, which means a decent USB-C PD battery pack can run it for several hours. And it supports full SpeedFusion bonding, so you can demonstrate every feature that matters.
The Transit Duo Pro is also the router that many clients will actually deploy in vehicles, on vessels, and at temporary sites. Demoing on the same hardware they will purchase removes the awkward "well, the production device is slightly different" conversation.
B One 5G
If your demos are primarily aimed at fixed-site customers (offices, branches, retail locations), the B One 5G can be a better choice. It has an integrated 5G modem plus dual Gigabit WAN ports, which lets you demonstrate a realistic office failover scenario: primary broadband on Ethernet, cellular backup on 5G, SpeedFusion bonding the two together. You can plug into the client's own broadband during the demo and show them exactly what their deployment would look like. At $299, the price point also makes the business case straightforward.
The downside is that the B One 5G only has one cellular modem. For a pure cellular bonding demo with no Ethernet available, you need two WAN paths, and a single modem only gives you one. You can work around this by tethering a phone as a second WAN via Wi-Fi WAN, but that adds complexity and looks less polished.
For most demo kits, the Transit Duo Pro is the better default. It works in more situations, travels more easily, and its dual modems give you flexibility regardless of the demo venue.
The cloud endpoint: FusionHub Solo
SpeedFusion bonding requires two endpoints. The router in your demo kit is one end of the tunnel. The other end needs to be a FusionHub instance running in a data centre or cloud provider.
FusionHub Solo is the free-tier virtual appliance from Peplink. It supports a single SpeedFusion peer and up to 5 Mbps of bonded throughput. That is not enough for production, but it is more than enough for a controlled demo where you are showing the concept rather than maxing out line speeds.
Deploy FusionHub Solo on a small cloud VM. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or any VPS provider will work. A t3.micro on AWS or a B1s on Azure is sufficient. Total cost is a few pounds per month. Set it up once, leave it running permanently, and your demo kit always has a cloud endpoint ready to go.
If you want to demonstrate higher throughput (and you should, once you move past proof-of-concept into pilot testing), upgrade to a licensed FusionHub with a higher throughput tier. The 100 Mbps licence is a worthwhile investment for a demo kit that gets regular use. It lets you show real-world aggregate speeds that are impressive enough to make the business case obvious.
One important detail: set up InControl 2 management for both the router and the FusionHub before you go to a demo. You want to be able to show the client the cloud management dashboard, the SpeedFusion tunnel status, and the bandwidth graphs from a single browser tab. Walking into a demo and discovering that your FusionHub has lost its InControl registration is not a good start.
SIM card strategy
Your SIM cards are the most important consumable in the kit, and they are also the component most likely to ruin a demo if you get the strategy wrong.
Multi-carrier is not optional
For a bonding demo to be convincing, your two cellular connections need to be on different carriers. If both SIMs are on the same network, they will connect to the same tower, congest at the same times, and often fail together. That defeats the entire point of bonding, which is path diversity.
In the UK, this means one SIM on EE and one on Three, or one on Vodafone and one on O2, or any combination that uses genuinely different radio networks. Do not use two MVNOs that both ride on the same underlying network. Check the actual network operator, not just the brand on the SIM.
Data allowance
A single bonding demo uses surprisingly little data if you stick to speed tests and video calls. Budget around 1-2 GB per demo session. But if you are running the kit several times per week, or if clients want to run extended pilot tests, you will burn through data quickly.
Get SIMs with at least 20 GB per month each. Unlimited data SIMs are better if you can get them at a reasonable cost. The last thing you want is to throttle mid-demo because you have hit a data cap. Nothing kills confidence like your bonding demo running at 0.5 Mbps because Three has rate-limited you to 384 kbps.
Keep spares
SIM cards get deactivated, networks have outages, and sometimes a particular carrier simply has no coverage at a demo venue. Keep at least one spare SIM on a third carrier in the kit. If your primary pair is EE and Three, keep a Vodafone SIM in reserve. Being able to swap out a non-working SIM in thirty seconds is the difference between a smooth demo and a cancelled meeting.
Antennas
The Transit Duo Pro ships with stubby antennas that screw directly onto the router body. These are fine for desk demos and indoor demonstrations where the cellular signal is adequate. But they are not always enough, and you should carry alternatives.
Portable paddle antennas
A pair of small paddle antennas (sometimes called blade antennas) with short SMA cables give you a meaningful improvement over the stubs without adding much bulk. You can position them near a window or at a higher point in the room while the router stays on the desk. This is useful in basement meeting rooms and concrete-walled offices where the stubby antennas struggle to get a usable signal.
Magnetic mount antennas
If you do vehicle or vessel demos, carry a pair of magnetic mount MIMO antennas. These stick to the roof of a car or the top of a metal cabinet and give you a proper ground plane for much better cellular performance. The improvement over stubby antennas can be dramatic: 10-15 dB of signal gain is not unusual, which can mean the difference between a marginal connection and a solid one.
Label your antenna cables clearly. SMA connectors all look the same, and plugging a cellular antenna into a Wi-Fi port (or vice versa) is an easy mistake that wastes precious setup time. Use coloured tape or cable labels.
Antenna placement during demos
Where you put the antennas matters more than which antennas you choose. A stubby antenna next to a window will outperform an expensive directional antenna sitting in the middle of a windowless room. If signal is weak, move the router or extend the antennas to the best available position before you start the demo. Do this during setup, not in front of the client. Fiddling with antenna placement while the client watches is not a confidence-building exercise.
Power
A demo kit that needs a mains socket is a demo kit that cannot be used in half the places you need it. Car parks, rooftops, loading docks, vessel decks, event fields. Many of the most compelling demo venues have no power.
Battery pack
The Transit Duo Pro draws approximately 18W at peak. A 100Wh USB-C PD battery pack will run it for roughly four to five hours, which is enough for two or three demo sessions with margin to spare. Look for a battery that supports USB-C Power Delivery at 12V or above, because the Transit Duo Pro needs more than the 5V that basic USB chargers provide.
Some engineers prefer a 12V DC barrel-jack battery pack designed for CCTV or portable networking equipment. These are bulkier but more reliable, and they eliminate the USB-C PD negotiation that can sometimes be temperamental with certain battery brands. A small 12V 6Ah lithium pack weighs under a kilogram and runs the Transit Duo Pro for over three hours.
Whichever battery you choose, charge it the night before every demo. This sounds obvious, but the number of dead-battery demos that happen in practice is embarrassingly high. Put a reminder in your calendar if you need to.
PoE considerations
If your demo kit includes a Peplink AP (such as the AP One Rugged for outdoor demos), you will need a PoE source. A small portable PoE injector and a secondary battery, or a PoE-capable battery pack, adds weight but lets you demonstrate a complete site-in-a-box: router plus Wi-Fi access point, all running on battery. This is extremely effective for event and broadcast demos where the client wants to see the entire solution, not just the router.
For most demos, though, skip the AP. The router's built-in Wi-Fi is sufficient for connecting a laptop and a phone, and keeping the kit simple means fewer things that can go wrong.
Software and tools
InControl2 dashboard
Have InControl2 open on your laptop before the client arrives. Log in, verify that the router and FusionHub are both online and showing green, and navigate to the SpeedFusion status page. You want the tunnel to be established and stable before the demo begins, not negotiating while the client watches a progress spinner.
InControl2 is also where you show the client what ongoing management looks like. After the technical demo, spend two minutes walking through the dashboard: device status, firmware management, configuration push, alerting. This addresses the "what happens after deployment" question that decision-makers always have.
Speed test methodology
Use Speedtest by Ookla (the CLI version or the app) for individual WAN speed measurements. Run a speed test on each cellular connection individually first, then enable bonding and run the test again through the SpeedFusion tunnel. The bonded result should be close to the sum of the individual connections. If SIM A delivers 30 Mbps and SIM B delivers 25 Mbps, the bonded tunnel should show roughly 50-55 Mbps.
Write the numbers down on a whiteboard or a piece of paper as you go. "SIM A: 30 Mbps. SIM B: 25 Mbps. Bonded: 52 Mbps." Seeing the arithmetic laid out in front of them makes the bonding concept click instantly for non-technical stakeholders.
If the bonded speed is noticeably lower than the sum of the individual connections, your FusionHub throughput licence is probably the bottleneck. FusionHub Solo caps at 5 Mbps, which will make your bonding demo look unimpressive. Upgrade to a proper licence before doing client-facing demos.
iPerf3 for technical audiences
For technical audiences who want to see raw throughput numbers without the variability of internet speed tests, run an iPerf3 server on the same cloud VM as your FusionHub. This gives you a controlled, repeatable benchmark. You can test TCP and UDP throughput, adjust packet sizes, and demonstrate exactly how SpeedFusion handles different traffic profiles.
Non-technical audiences do not care about iPerf3. Stick to the Speedtest app and video calls for business stakeholders.
A pre-built monitoring display
Set up a split-screen view on your demo laptop: InControl2 SpeedFusion status on one half, a real-time bandwidth monitor on the other. The Peplink router's built-in status page at 192.168.50.1 (or whatever your LAN address is) shows per-WAN bandwidth in real time. Having this visible during the demo lets the client see traffic flowing across both connections simultaneously.
The three core demo scenarios
Every demo kit should be able to run three scenarios reliably. Rehearse them until they are second nature.
1. Bandwidth bonding
This is the showpiece. Connect both cellular WANs, establish the SpeedFusion tunnel to your FusionHub, and run a speed test. Show the individual WAN speeds first, then the bonded speed. The bonded number should be roughly the sum of the two.
For extra impact, start a large file download through the bonded tunnel and show the bandwidth monitor. The client can see traffic being distributed across both connections in real time. Then ask them: "What would happen if one of these connections dropped?" That is your segue into scenario two.
2. Hot failover
Start a video call (Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet) through the bonded SpeedFusion tunnel. Let it run for thirty seconds so the client can see it is stable. Then physically eject one SIM card from the router.
The video call should continue without interruption. There might be a momentary quality drop as SpeedFusion re-routes all traffic through the remaining connection, but the call should not drop. The client's reaction to this is almost always immediate and visceral. They just watched you rip out half the connectivity and nothing happened. That is the moment the sale moves forward.
Put the SIM back in. The second WAN will reconnect, the tunnel will re-bond, and the bandwidth will return to its previous level. Show this recovery on the monitoring display.
A word of caution: rehearse this before every demo. If your SpeedFusion tunnel is configured for load balancing rather than bonding, or if the tunnel health check settings are too aggressive, the failover might not be as smooth as you expect. Test it in the car park before you walk into the building.
3. WAN smoothing
This scenario is most relevant for broadcast and video production clients, but it impresses everyone. SpeedFusion WAN smoothing sends duplicate packets across multiple WAN connections, so that packet loss on any single connection does not affect the final stream.
To demonstrate this, start a video call through the bonded tunnel with WAN smoothing enabled. Then deliberately degrade one of the connections. You can do this by partially removing an antenna (reducing signal strength) or by using the Peplink router's built-in bandwidth control to simulate packet loss on one WAN.
With WAN smoothing off, the video call will stutter and freeze as one connection degrades. With WAN smoothing on, it stays clean. Toggle smoothing on and off while the call is running and let the client see the difference in real time.
This demo is particularly effective if you can get the client to be on the other end of the video call. They experience the difference first-hand rather than just watching your screen.
The carrying case
A proper carrying case matters more than you might think. A Pelican 1510 (or equivalent) is the standard for a reason: it is carry-on sized for flights, waterproof, crushproof, and has a pressure release valve so it does not pop open when you fly. Custom-cut foam keeps everything in its place and looks professional when you open it in front of a client.
Arrange the case so the most-used items are on top. Router, battery, and antenna cables should be accessible without removing everything else. SIM cards, Ethernet cables, and spare adapters go underneath.
Include a small inventory card inside the lid listing every item in the kit. Before you leave a client site, check every item against the list. Leaving a power adapter behind at a demo venue is a rite of passage, but it is one you only want to go through once.
Here is a suggested packing list:
- Peplink MAX Transit Duo Pro (or B One 5G)
- Stubby antennas (attached to router)
- Paddle antennas with SMA cables (in separate pouch)
- Magnetic mount antennas (if vehicle demos are likely)
- SIM cards x3 (two active, one spare, different carriers)
- SIM eject tool
- USB-C PD battery pack, fully charged
- 12V DC barrel-jack cable (if using DC battery)
- Mains power adapter for the router
- Ethernet cable x2 (1m and 3m)
- Laptop charger
- USB-C to Ethernet adapter (if your laptop lacks an Ethernet port)
- A4 notepad for writing down speed test results
- Cable labels and coloured tape
- Inventory card
What clients care about seeing
After running demo kits through hundreds of client meetings, patterns emerge in what actually moves deals forward and what falls flat.
Business stakeholders care about resilience. They want to see the SIM-pull failover demo. They want to know that their video calls, payment systems, or live streams will not drop when a connection fails. They do not care about throughput numbers beyond "is it fast enough?" Show them the failover, show them the video call surviving, and then show them InControl2 so they know someone can manage it without a networking PhD.
Technical stakeholders care about how it works under the hood. They want to see the SpeedFusion tunnel configuration, the bonding algorithm options, the health check settings, the per-WAN bandwidth allocation. Let them log into the router's web interface. Let them poke around. Technical people trust products they have been allowed to explore.
Operations people care about management and monitoring. Show them InControl2 alerts, firmware scheduling, configuration templates. Show them how a fleet of 50 routers can be managed from a single dashboard. This is where Peplink's cloud management platform really shines compared to competitors who bolt on management as an afterthought.
Tailor your demo to the audience in the room. If you are presenting to a mixed group, run the failover demo first (everyone finds it impressive), then offer to walk through the technical details with anyone who wants them.
Common demo mistakes
Every engineer who runs demos regularly has a collection of war stories about demos that went wrong. Here are the most common failures and how to avoid them.
Not testing at the venue beforehand
Cellular coverage varies dramatically between locations. A demo kit that works perfectly in your office might struggle in a basement meeting room in central London or a steel-framed warehouse in an industrial estate. If possible, visit the venue beforehand and check signal strength. If you cannot visit in advance, arrive thirty minutes early and test. Have a backup plan for poor signal: paddle antennas, a window-mounted antenna, or worst case, switch to a mobile hotspot as a WAN source and demonstrate the technology conceptually rather than letting it fail in front of the client.
Dead battery
Charge everything the night before. Put the battery on charge before you go to bed. Set a phone alarm if you have to. A dead battery at a demo is entirely preventable and entirely unprofessional.
Expired or deactivated SIMs
Pay-as-you-go SIMs expire if you do not top them up. Contract SIMs get suspended if the bill is not paid. Check your SIMs at least once a week by powering up the kit and verifying that both connections register on the network. A 30-second check on Monday morning saves a ruined demo on Thursday.
FusionHub offline
Cloud VMs get shut down for billing reasons, maintenance, or because someone tidied up unused instances. Set up a monitoring alert on your FusionHub VM so you know immediately if it goes offline. A free uptime monitor like UptimeRobot pointing at the FusionHub's management interface is sufficient.
Demoing features you have not rehearsed
It is tempting to freestyle during a demo, especially if a client asks about a feature you have not prepared. Resist the urge. If you have not rehearsed it, say "I can set that up and show you in a follow-up session" rather than fumbling through an unrehearsed demo that makes the product look bad. A confident "let me show you that next time" is far better than a botched live demonstration.
Talking too much
The kit does the selling. Your job is to set it up, run the demos, and then get out of the way. Do not narrate every step in excruciating detail. Start the speed test, write down the numbers, move on. Start the video call, pull the SIM, let the silence do the work. Clients remember what they saw, not what you said.
Ignoring the follow-up
The demo itself is only the beginning. Send the client a follow-up email the same day with the speed test results you wrote down, a brief summary of what you demonstrated, and a proposed next step (usually a site survey or a pilot deployment). The demo created the momentum. The follow-up turns it into a project.
Site survey mode
A demo kit doubles as a site survey tool. When you arrive at a prospective deployment location, power up the kit and check cellular signal strength from each carrier at the exact position where the production router will be installed. Walk the site with the kit and note signal levels from different locations. This data feeds directly into your deployment design: which carriers to provision, whether external antennas are needed, and what throughput the client can realistically expect.
The Peplink router's signal strength display (RSRP, RSRQ, and SINR for LTE; SS-RSRP and SS-SINR for 5G NR) gives you the numbers you need. Record them in a simple spreadsheet: location, carrier, band, RSRP, RSRQ, SINR, download speed. This becomes part of your proposal document and demonstrates a level of engineering rigour that generic resellers cannot match.
Keeping the kit current
A demo kit is not a build-once, forget-forever tool. It needs regular maintenance.
- Firmware. Update the router firmware at least quarterly. New firmware versions add features and fix bugs. You do not want to be running firmware from two years ago when a client's IT team checks the version number.
- SIM data. Monitor data usage and top up or renew SIMs before they expire.
- FusionHub. Keep the FusionHub firmware in sync with the router firmware. Mismatched firmware can cause SpeedFusion compatibility issues.
- Battery health. Lithium batteries degrade over time. Replace your demo battery annually, or whenever you notice the runtime dropping below three hours.
- Hardware refresh. When Peplink releases a new model that your clients will be buying, update the demo kit to match. Demoing on obsolete hardware undermines credibility.
Building the kit: total cost
A complete demo kit is not cheap, but it pays for itself after a handful of successful demos. Here is a rough cost breakdown for a UK-based kit:
- Peplink MAX Transit Duo Pro: approximately £900-1,100
- FusionHub Solo: free (or £300-500 for a licensed 100 Mbps instance)
- Cloud VM hosting: £5-15/month
- SIM cards x3: £30-60/month total
- Paddle antennas: £60-100
- Magnetic mount antennas: £80-150
- USB-C PD battery pack (100Wh): £60-100
- Pelican 1510 case with foam: £150-200
- Cables, adapters, labels: £30-50
Total upfront cost is in the range of £1,300-2,200, plus £40-80 per month in running costs. One closed deal more than covers it. Most organisations that invest in a demo kit report that it becomes one of their most effective sales tools within the first month.
Final thoughts
A demo kit is not about the hardware. The router, the SIMs, the antennas, the battery: these are just the components. The kit itself is a rehearsed, reliable, repeatable demonstration that proves to a prospect that Peplink technology does what the data sheets claim. The best demo kits belong to engineers who test them every week, rehearse their scenarios until they can run them without thinking, and treat every demo as a performance that reflects on their organisation.
Build the kit. Rehearse the demos. Charge the battery. And let the technology speak for itself.
We are a Peplink Gold Partner and we build and deploy these kits regularly. If you need help specifying the right demo hardware, configuring your FusionHub endpoint, or designing demo scenarios for your target market, get in touch. You can also browse our Peplink store to see the current Transit Duo Pro, B One, and antenna options.