TRENDnet Wireless AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit Router with USB 3.0 Share Port, Pre-Encrypted, TEW-812DRU

Trendnet AC1750 TEW-812DRU replaced a Dlink Dir-655 that replaced a Zyxel X-550.I give the router a 4 or 5 stars and the tech support 1 or 2 stars.In searching for a dual band router a friend turned me onto an article about latest quality dual band wireless high speed routers. The Trendnet AC1750 was #3 or #4 or so on the list of top 10. #1 was about $300 and #2 about $225. This one was about $120 or so. An easy choice. Worked great up until a storm took out my DSL modem. NetGear DM111PSP would not power up. I was able to get the old NetGear DM111PSP modem to work where I could not before.Originally, the setup was easy and fast. Very clear directions and walk through.I really like the 2.4 and 5g available setup, guest access, and easy to advertise or not the AP.Firmware easy to find and upload.Adult/parent controls.Everything from Xbox 360 to wireless printer to Socialist Marxist Android phone to Win8 phone, Win7 DT and LT connected easily.Whole bunch of other bells and whistles I never used.So, old modem and I was able to update the firmware for it. Able to get online.However, the Trendnet router would not connect to the Modem. No internet connection. Globe light would not light up.I was able to connect my PC to the Trendnet router, my printer, my NAS, my Cyber Power power supply, etc. All working and connecting, wireless and wired to the router. However, zero internet. Clearly the internet port died. Now, this could be due to the storm or it could be coincidental. It is probably not too far of a stretch to imagine that the Internet port got fried where nothing else did. However, it is much more easily imagined that it was just coincidental, or a tipping point for a point of failure or already failing.Called Trendnet tech support. Sent over to I am guessing India. Literally 5 tries to get my name to support tech. He never got it correct. Moved over to my email address. Got it correct, I think, after literally 7 tries. Then tech kept trying to use my email address as my last name. At that point I asked to be transferred to US tech support. I was told I could not be. I informed him that I was requesting the transfer and that I was fairly sure that it was a US law that if I asked to be transferred to US support, I was supposed to be transferred. Tech said 'No, this was the only support and I had to use it.'10+ min on the phone by then and we spent the next 5+ min getting my email and name correct.Then we spent 90+ min doing the same thing over and over and over again.PC to modem, Internet connection.Modem to Router no internet connection.Power off, power on, unplug all, power off, power on, PC to router set up, WAN IP = non, soft reset, hard reset, unplug all, plug all, etc. Swap cables. Update firmware. Repeat. Start all over. Kept asking for WAN IP address even though the internet globe light never lit up once. NOTE: internet globe light would light up for 1/2 second on restart. Xfer to supervisor. On hold and constant clicking off and on hold. Waiting for me to hang up? Same thing but for firmware. Plug, unplug, swap cables, PC direct to modem, PC direct to router, router to modem. Hard reset, etc.Finally RMA after 90+ min.I was nice, calm, and pleasant during this. So was tech. But a huge waste of time. I performed 1st and 2nd lvl tech support for a fortune 100 company for 3 years. I had the highest volume and resolution rate out of 200+ techs. Even when I did 2nd lvl support I was still V&R in the top 10% of 250+ techs.To me it seemed that 70% of this was to just frustrate me and get me to quit and go away. Well, I quite and will go away. I will get my RMA'ed router and if it breaks or when I replace it I will not go with Trendnet again.

**NOTE** The current model is v2.1 but I am posting about the previous model since this was the previous link to the same device. With that said...802.11ac was fairly young and few devices could actually utilize the bandwidth. This was recommended among other routers at that time, being somewhat of a "middle-ground" between top-performance and cost-efficient. I took the plunge and was satisfied until this year. I will admit that I am a tech geek with intricate knowledge about networking, therefore I want control over every possible detail of my network.______Wireless_____4 out of 5The TEW-812dru v1.0 does a great job with wifi, at least with one SSID per band. I have both my 2.4 and 5GHz set up to broadcast throughout my apartment. Although the infrastructure is old (30+ years) it does a decent job at penetrating walls to reach adjacent rooms. It sits on my desk next to thick wood here on the 2nd floor. My room (close to being underneath) receives wifi with decent speeds to browse the internet on with my iPad mini 1st gen and even my iPhone 4S. When within reasonable range you can achieve speeds between 700 and 900 Mbps (I have Google Fiber) but you have to be within direct sight of the router and on the ac (5GHz) band. 802.11n connections do very well and often reach maximum speeds that it offers. Needless to say, the wifi does decently.However, despite the decent coverage you cannot change the signal strength. You may change the broadcast transfer rate, channel, bonding, and 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, and even do multiple SSIDs (ex. private network with separate public network). I have not tested this out because I did not need it. Please see other reviews upon this subject_____Setup_____4 out of 5Setup with this router out-of-the-box is fairly painless, even for those who aren't tech-savvy. Plug in the power, connect via instruction manual guidance, easy setup, and boom! Done. What about modems? Sorry, no experience with that.____Web interface____3.5 out of 5The web interface has, recently, been disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it's functional and navigation is easy to figure out. However, lately I have had to log in then exit my browser tab, attempt to reconnect, refresh, refresh, and it will finally load. I did not have this issue with previous firmware versions (pre 1/25/2015) and it also will randomly request that I log in again within two minutes of having done so. Sometimes it may be a little unresponsive. Overall it's solid and gets the job done. For problems with menu listings see my "Advanced" section_____Reliability_____4 out of 5Only ever had to reset it twice due to problems like a wifi band refusing to broadcast. If it wasn't for the web interface troubles it would appear to be perfectly designed for those who only want a "plug 'n play" router_____Advanced features_____3 out of 5Here's where I will be most critical. This router is missing these features:* Signal strength* Bridge mode* DHCP IPv6, IPv6 in generalWhile signal strength is a minor feature (as this is not an industrial-grade router) the lack of bridge mode and IPv6 support is disappointing. For those who have to have a modem or ISP router you will experience NAT problems. Gamers will NOT like this, especially on consoles. I have had to do some very complicated workarounds so that our network wasn't impacted by this. I had to set our Google Router to place my router in a DMZ so that three of us with XBOX One consoles could play together without "Strict NAT." You can't really "open ports" to allow two-way socket connections as they have to be mapped out to individual devices and cannot be duplicated. Usually UPnP makes up for this but this router would sometimes fail to do so properly and would refuse an incoming connection. The workaround has eliminated the problem but bridge mode could have fixed all of this.The lack of IPv6 is disappointing. I'll just say that.The "Advanced" group settings are ok but some are confusing and complicated to set up. By that I mean the names of the features as some aren't properly titled. For example, Port Forwarding is listed as "Gaming" in the sidebar. Port Triggers is titled "Special Applications." For whatever reason, UPnP and WAN Ping are under "Advanced Settings." QoS (Quality of Service) is under the "Network" group rather than "Advanced." Finally, there is a "Virtual Server" feature that is a strange hybrid of Port Forwarding and Port Triggers. Keep in mind that if you assign ports FTP or WEB (80) to an internal server it will impact your personal device's ability to browse the web or access external file servers._____3rd-party firmware (open-source)_____As to this day, Open WRT and DD-WRT are not compatible with v1. Don't expect to be able to "convert it" to allow more advanced features. I would challenge TRENDnet to work with one of the open-source communities in order to allow modifying this router. Although it may void your warranty doing so would encourage further use of this router to unlock its full potential.___________________________________Summary__________* Solid* Reliable* User-friendly* 802.11ac capable* Lacks advanced features* Does not support (DHCP)IPv6* Good for hosting personal server(s)