The EnGenius ESR1750 is a Dual Band (450 + 1300 Mbps) Wireless Router with a Gigabit WAN port for faster upload and download speeds and a built-in 4-Port Gigabit switch for connecting home entertainment devices such as HDTVs, Blu-ray players, set top boxes or game consoles so that you can access your Internet connection. This Quantum Beam™ pod-shaped router also includes a USB port for attaching a storage device and sharing media content in the home or away from home to mobile devices like smartphones or tablets and laptop PCs with EnShare™ — Your Personal Cloud.
Includes DNLA Server so you can share media and picture files from local USB storage to your network. Just connect USB storage (stick/external hard drive) with your media files to the USB port on the router and you can then share them to UPnP compliant renderers such as Windows computers, tablets, phones, medial players.
The EnGenius ESR1750 supports the new 802.11ac standard. ac basically means the ESR1750 can use up to all of the 5GHz channels to give a very high throughput. e.g. the ESR1750 quotes 1.3gig for the 5GHz WiFi! Of course this depends upon the other end being of similar specification and channels being free.
In addition to 802.11n wireless speeds of up to 450 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band, the ESR1750 features Quantum Beam, a beam forming technology in the 5 GHz band that seeks the strongest and most efficient signal path from the router to a wireless client device. The result is greatly enhanced range and 5 GHz wireless speeds that even exceed wired Gigabit
The ESR1750’s high transmit power capability is designed to deliver extended range and expanded coverage so your family can connect more devices throughout your home. The ESR1750 also supports several security features and settings including industry standard wireless encryption, such as WPA/WPA2 (Wireless Protected Access) to prevent unauthorised access to the home network; an advanced SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) firewall to block malicious software from the Internet from accessing networked devices; MAC Address filtering to grant only known computers and devices network access; and URL filtering to block access to unwanted or offensive websites.
With the ESR1750 you can also enable up to eight separate and discrete SSIDs, Service Set Identifiers (four SSIDs per frequency band) or ways to access the network. This gives you the ability to offer friends or visitors Internet access or access to specific devices, like networked printers, while protecting other networked computers or hard drives in the home that may contain private information.
This smart router also employs Advanced QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritize bandwidth-intensive applications like video and gaming or bandwidth sensitive applications like VoIP (Voice over IP) telephone calls for optimal connectivity whether over wired or wireless connections.
Don't be confused by the flying saucer shape of the ESR1750 from EnGenius, it is actually intended as desktop device or to be wall mounted. The lan and power connections are on the side which makes them less than ideal for ceiling mount - could be done but the cables would stick out of the side and may look messy.