Netgear Launches First Professional Router To Compete In SMB Networking Space

The networking specialist has launched its first professional router designed with business users in mind that completes its total networking package for partners and end customers. The offering will help Netgear more effectively go head-to-head with the wireless networking heavyweights, including Cisco Systems and HPE Aruba, for SMB attention.

Networking specialist Netgear has long had compelling, cloud-managed access point and switch products for the consumer and SMB markets, but the company hasn’t historically brought a full networking offering to the table for business customers.

San Jose, Calif.-based Netgear on Wednesday unveiled a 10G/Multi-Gigabit Dual-WAN Router for business use cases. The latest offering is a good fit for VARs and MSPs that manage their customers’ infrastructure across multiple locations, and it rounds out the company’s “Total Networking Solution Ecosystem” for SMBs, John Henkel, director of product marketing for Netgear, told CRN.

“We’ve had some other [offerings] that are more home-based routers that sits on a shelf, but now we have the router, access points, switches and the software. We really are providing a total network solution and that really starts with the router,” Henkel said.

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The Netgear PR60X professional router offers 10G/multi-gigabit throughput. The company said it’s equipped to handle high device speeds with uninterrupted internet connectivity for business applications and services with its dual WAN failover design. The router contains a built-in firewall that can monitor and block unauthorized access to the network and can provide up to 30 VPN tunnels for businesses to connect remote workers, branch offices and partners to the main corporate network.

The new router is supported by Netgear’s answer to cloud management, its Insight platform. The Insight platform allows businesses and channel partners to remotely configure and manage access points, switches and routers from any location, Henkel said.

The new router joins Netgear’s line of Smart Switches, Pro Wi-Fi Access Points and the Insight cloud-based management platform. Together with the rest of the Netgear portfolio, the PR60X professional router offers the complete wireless package, not only for customers, but for partners, who have had to turn to third-party wireless vendors to offer a full solution to their end customers, Henkel said.

“[Partners] have had to go somewhere else for a router before because we haven’t had that part of the puzzle,” he said.

Netgear most often competes with the likes of HPE Aruba, Extreme Networks and Ubiquiti, as well as Cisco Systems, in some cases, Henkel said.

“I think we’re certainly more affordable than Cisco ... I also think people like our attention to for Wi-Fi design and that attention we give to the VARs and integrators that they don’t see from other companies,” he said.

Cobbling together a wireless networking infrastructure complicates network management, especially for customers and partners that are increasingly interested in using the same vendor, Henkel added.

“While people like our access points and Insight is on par with other [management] systems, people either had to use somebody else’s router and that wasn’t controlled by Insight, and that doesn’t work well for [businesses],” he said.

The Netgear PR60X is available in the U.S. now, exclusively through the channel.