Dual WAN wired router recommendations

We are looking to replace a quirky Linksys router with a Dual WAN router.

We'd need a minimum of 4 LAN ports. Ideally 8 or 16 LAN ports.
We have cable as our primary ISP connection, and will likely get DSL or wireless for the contingency connection.

We would like VPN capability to allow connections from remote locations (nice to have).

Negative reviews on Cisco RV016/RV082/RV042 routers concern me. I see similar negative comments on some of the competitor products.

What is on the list today:
TP Link TL-R4299G
Cisco RV016
PePLink Balance 20

Who is using what, and what do you recommend to buy or avoid?

 

you are planning on using fail over rather than load balancing? Have you considered a professional device such as the sonicwall products? Or is this for home use?

What would wireless as a second connection be? Mobile broadband? That might be tough to configure to a router or firewall.

 

The intent was to use the second connection as purely a failover. Performance over cable isn't that bad for us today - although we are talking with the cable company to improve speed. Talking with several router companies, we should be able to use either the second WAN port for wireless or use a USB port on the router.

We have 8-10 users on our network connected to the internet. Cable Modem, 4-port Router, three small switches. Currently no VOIP (and no real intent to use that for business phone calls yet).

We are looking at wireless to avoid losing both primary and secondary connections at the same time. Our largest outage over the past few years was when a car took out a utility pole that carries both phone and cable connections.

We are going to try a PepLink Balance 20 and see how that works out. That device has 2 WAN ports and 1 USB port - so in theory we could be running two load balanced connections to ISP's and a third 3G/4G contingency connection via the USB port. Roughly $270 delivered.

 

That's a great deal. There have been a lot of advances with those devices in the last 3-4 years. I reasearched them a few years ago after the exact same type of accident -- car took out our T1. The technology existed but the devices were just emerging for smaller users.