There's a telephone port that has an ADSL2/VDSL2 modem supporting UK services like BT Infinity and there's another Ethernet port for WAN access (usually to drive a PPPoE modem) that can also be used to drive a back-up line.
The 2 USB ports can also be configured to support a 3G/LTE mobile connection (and configured to fail-over) or they can be used to host a disk and then share it over the network.
The WiFi is supported by three MIMO antennas supporting (in theory) 1,300Mb/s and 300Mb/s o 2.4GHz. It can also do a network scan and pick the most unused channels to optimise performance in your environment.
There are a huge range of configuration options that are accessed through a web interface (there's also console access where most things can be done through a CLI). These can be pretty daunting, though for a casual user most won't be used. By default there are several VLANs configured (though not enabled) and the LAN and Wireless will be configured to use 192.168.1.x and push out IP addresses via DHCP.
It's possible to use a 'real' IP block using the IP Routed connection, however the VLANs will still have their original settings and the router will internally still be connectable on the 192.168.1.1 (to most people it won't make a difference, but it can really confuse things when debugging stuff).
The web interface is arranged in reasonable easy to understand sections
- Dashboard Wizards Online Status
- WAN
- LAN
- Hotspot Web Portal
- Routing
- NAT
- Hardware Acceleration
- Firewall
- User Management
- Objects Setting
- CSM
- Bandwidth Management
- Applications
- VPN and Remote Access
- Certificate Management
- Wireless LAN (2.4 GHz)
- Wireless LAN (5 GHz)
- SSL VPN
- USB Application
- System Maintenance
- Diagnostics
Also
Central Management
- VPN
- AP
- Switch
- External Devices
And
Support Area
- Product Registration
The router does support SIP functionality, but as with a lot of routers, it might be better just to let SIP stuff through and handle filtering on the actual VoIP devices. There's also a pretty good firewall, so incoming packets can be blocked at the network edge.
The router can be configured through the web interface and this is true for both connecting via the "Internet" and LAN sides of the network, which is useful if you need your ISP or systems integrator to configure something, but generally it's safer to have the WAN access turned off.
Oddly there was weird issue when configuring the Wireless LAN settings. In theory you can configure the 2.4GHz and settings will also be applied to the 5GHz radio, unfortunately (probably user error) something didn't quite work and though the SSIDs were identical, the password didn't seem to be copied across, so nothing could connect to 5GHz. Manually setting the password and everything worked.
It is possible to set a hotspot portal that can also be set to authenticate so allowing guests on to the network (and if VLANs are set can restrict bandwidth and such like).
The Vigor 2860 is a pretty capable router (though now replaced with the 2862).
The new model costs around £250.
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