Review on High-Performance UTT ER840G WAN Router With 4 Gigabit Ports For Businesses - Load Balancing, Failover, VPN, USB, & Access Control by Pete Martin

First of all, the router that is pictured is not the router I received. Mine has the same model number, but looks different (blue faceplace) and does NOT have a usb port. I really don't need a USB port so that doesn't matter. Apparently there are some earlier versions of this router sitting on the warehouse shelves, so if you need the USB port, be aware that you might not get the version that has one.First the good:This router does what it is supposed to do. It allows me to use two different internet providers without having to manually switch between them if one of them goes down. It seems to be well-built. It has a pretty large set of router features, most of them that I don't use but could which include: Traffic reporting, VPN, QoS, NAT, static routing, rule-based routing, web content filtering, and firewall, wireless device management (although this ISN'T a wi-fi router). You get a lot of functionality for the price. This unit did not come with a configuration manual, but once you get logged into the management pages using the quick start guide, the Help link at the top does give you access to detailed configuration information.Now the not-so-good:UTT is apparently no longer in business. Their website is down and appears to have been down for quite some time. Without the website, there is no access to support or firmware updates. I had a configuration problem and was unable to find any useful information on the Internet. I tried emailing them at their support address and never got a reply. I eventually figured out the issue on my own.While this router does have automated failover capabilities (it will switch to a back up connection if your primary connection fails and switch back once it comes back online), it isn't a seamless switchover. When my primary ISP connection drops, I lose connectivity on all network-connected devices for 3-5 seconds before the secondary one comes online. This isn't usually a big problem, but it does cause ongoing video calls to pause and can cause downloads to fail in some cases. The changeover back to primary is seamless with no downtime.Although it supports static routing for specific IP addresses, it does NOT support static routes with IP masks (such as 192.168.10.1/24) or any type of wildcarding. This means that if you have several or many target IPs within the same IP block, you have to set up a static route for each one. In my case, I need a static route to my Starlink modem but that requires an IP mask to work properly, so I just can't do it.I actually ordered a replacement for this router (TP-Link ER605) because I don't like the idea of not being able to get firmware updates, but found that the primary to backup connection switching time for it was much slower (30 seconds), so I went back to this one.Overall it's a decent router that does what it's supposed to do. It is less capable than some more expensive units, but for simple home-based or small business networks that just need a reliable failover, it's not a bad choice for the price point.