Billion launches “belt and braces” broadband wireless router

For those of you that have trouble sustaining a decent broadband line at your office, Taiwanese networking specialist Billion Electric Co, has the answer. It has launched a three way router for the home in the UK, which can use either 3G or DSL as its access network and communicates around the home in wi-fi.

Billion has a wide range of 3G routers for the home and the enterprise and the new BiPac 7800GZ, lets users directly insert an HSPDA SIM into the router. They say this one is designed for enterprise applications because it has multiple ways to recover signal, if any of them fails, so it can support mission critical applications. The thing costs £329 plus VAT.

The company says that it has a Triple WAN interface, which we take to mean there are three ways to get a signal to it. You can set it up to take 3G, but also ADSL2+ (which remember will talk to any kind of DSL) and use one of its Ethernet ports to plug it into a second DSL physical line. That’s really belt and braces.

The BiPac 7800GZ comes with four Ethernet ports and can be configured to automatically switch from one broadband source to another, as soon as the connection is lost. It also sends an email to whoever looks after it to tell them it’s happened.

The ADSL chip comes from Broadcom and the mobile broadband performance is helped along with 2 external detachable 3G antennas, which means you get a signal just about anywhere, instead of being limited to the tiny antennas inside 3G USB sticks and dongles.

The BiPAc 7800GZ also comes with a business-class firewall, supports IPSec VPN capability and has built-in Quality of Service (QoS) for bandwidth management and traffic prioritization.

Billion made its name in the UK by launching the first Mi-Fi style routers to translate cellular broadband into wi-fi, about three years ago.

Edward Kung, Managing Director of Billion in the UK says: “The 7800GZ is a fantastic addition to Billion’s already impressive portfolio of business routers. The embedded SIM feature is a response to customer demand for a more resilient 3G router solution, but at a competitive price. The 7800GZ gives enterprise-level performance at a fraction of the cost of a similarly spec’d Sarian or Cisco product.”

The BiPac 7800GZ also comes with a dedicated 3G usage tools so you can track 3G usage to help manage a subscription. It can be set up to disconnect from 3G at a pre-determined threshold to avoid those costly overruns.

The device supports HSPDA up to 7.2 Mbps and ADSL2+ speeds up to 24 Mbps, and 54 Mbps Wireless.