Showerthought: I blew $1,400 on a "business grade" router that our old $80 one handled fine

Avery Carr · 2026-11-04T01:25:05.005668+00:00

Six months ago I got talked into buying a fancy business router for our two person print shop in Akron, mostly on the promise that it would keep our card terminal and laptop on separate networks without me touching anything. The sales guy swore the auto failover alone would pay for itself, and I bought the whole line about uptime. It sat on the shelf for two months while our old cheap router kept humming along, and when I finally swapped it in, our printer went offline every morning and I had to reboot the thing twice a day, so I paid $1,400 for more headaches. My neighbor runs a plumbing shop and says his cheap setup has been solid for 5 years, while another guy I know swears you have to buy the commercial stuff or your payments will drop. I'm stuck in the middle now, out the cash and back on the old box, wondering if I just got a bad unit or if this whole tier of gear is a trap. Has anyone here actually had a cheap router fail on their business, or is the premium stuff mostly a story they sell you?

Rigidtalk

Loading…

Showerthought: I blew $1,400 on a "business grade" router that our old $80 one handled fine | Business Internet - Rigidtalk