DrayTek VigorBX 2000ac
A telephony and data powerhouse for small business.
While IP telephony has become the standard for enterprises, in the home and small business space, it’s barely had any impact. Few router makers are still pursuing it, but if you’re interested in IP telephony, there are still some manufacturers that provide capable solutions.
DrayTek’s new VigorBX 2000ac modem router is a jack of all trades for small businesses, providing advanced routing and Wi-Fi alongside a built-in SIP server. It even has a VPN gateway service. It has a VDSL port and an Ethernet WAN port with load balancing in between them if both are connected. It can also support a 4G modem attached to a USB port, and that can be included in the load balancing schema. There are six gigabit LAN ports for client connections (no Power over Ethernet, sadly), as well as some very advanced tools for port management, including features like LAN segmentation, content filtering and detailed quality of service options.
Full VPN client and gateway functionality is built in. The router has enough power and comes with enough licenses to support 32 simultaneous tunnels (and 16 SSL tunnels). It supports all the major protocols, too: L2TP, PPTP, SSL and IPSec.
However, when it comes to both router and VPN setup, you should be aware that, as with most DrayTek routers, setup and configuration is not for the uninitiated. There are no quick wizards, no easy mobile apps and no hand holding. You need to know at least a little bit about what you’re doing to get it up and running, and it’s the kind of thing that most small businesses will need a tech guy to accomplish.
The major selling point for a lot of people with this router is the in-built IP PBX capabilities. It supports up to 50 IP phone extensions that can feed into up to 12 SIP trunks.
As with the router functions, setup is a complex affair, but DrayTek has actually done a pretty great job of organising the many and varied functions of the IP PBX service, and we never had any trouble finding the element we were looking for. While you do need to be somewhat savvy to set it up, you don’t need to be a master of Asterisk command line options, for instance.
It’s certainly a capable system, offering much more than a simple call service. You can configure phone menu systems and automated ‘robo-calls’ with customer surveys. You can set up office hours and automated response systems when out of hours. There are dial plans, speed dialling and call barring. It supports faxes, detailed call records (up to 1,000 calls) and can store voice mail messages on an attached hard drive or email them directly. It even has support for twin PSTN failover lines in case of a SIP failure, as well as a port for a conventional analogue handset in the style of a regular VoIP modem router.
Given all it capabilities, this really is a great one-stop solution for a small business looking to move to IP telephony solutions. Highly recommended.