Cloud-based Wi-Fi Router Service Roqos Launches

[thiggins]

Tyson Virginia based Roqos today unveiled its $17 / month cloud-based Wi-Fi router service that includes parental controls and UTM features.

For a one-time charge of $19, they'll ship you the Roqos Core hardware. Then for a monthly subscription fee of $17 (with a one year committment) you get parental controls and deep packet inspection of all internet traffic.

The Roqos Core hardware is fairly beefy compared to even the $400 monster routers hawked by the established consumer networking players. It features a 1.9 GHz quad-core Intel Atom CPU backed by 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash. Ports include Gigabit Ethernet WAN (1) and switched LAN ports (4) and one USB 3.0 port that doesn't support storage sharing.

Roqos has gone with a retro AC1600 class design for the Wi-Fi side, with a 3x3 5 GHz radio and 2x2 2.4 GHz radio supporting maximum link rates of 1300 and 300 Mbps respectively.

For firmware, Roqos is trying to establish its open source cred, citing use of Mongo, Suricata, Squid, OpenVPN and other popular technolgies.

The Roqos team bio claims they started in 2013 and is led by CEO Sezen Uysal and Director of Engineering Jong Lee, both formerly from NetScout Systems.

Roqos' pre-order page says they'll start shipping next month. All you need to do is let them hit your credit card for $36 ($19 for the Roqos Core and $17 for the first month of service). Unlike most other new networking start-ups, Roqos says they won't charge your card until your order is shipped.

But be aware that you're signing up for a year of service ($204), with no clear cancellation policy. Roqos' terms don't have a customer cancellation clause and you'll need to contact Roqos Support to cancel.

 

[Mordred]

Hmmmm I cannot find any download link for their firmware sources?

@tim, how about a little wireless review on this one, the specs are cool, what's missing is the info if the firmware is based on opensource and if the wireless is any good.

 

[RMerlin]

Hmmmm I cannot find any download link for their firmware sources?

Try contacting them. GPL compliance doesn't require sources to be directly downloadable, they just have to provide them if asked for them. That's what a lot of big corporations do for instances where GPL requests are very uncommon (like car manufacturers).

Chances are, they simply haven't gotten around yet to preparing a downloadable archive, considering this is quite new. After all, they aren't even shipping yet.

But be aware that you're signing up for a year of service ($204), with no clear cancellation policy.

Sounds expensive. What would be the incentive of going with a 200$ yearly service?

 

[Razor512]

Makes me want to build dedicated pfsense box, and buy a dedicated AP that works without a monthly fee.

 

[sfx2000]

Edited - see summary/update lower down in this thread.

 

[thiggins]

Sounds expensive. What would be the incentive of going with a 200$ yearly service?

Most UTM appliances require subscriptions. The ZyXEL USG20-VPN yearly license costs are $76 for content filtering and $110 for anti-spam, for example.

Roqos is fuzzy about exactly what they provide past content filtering. Many of the Feature descriptions are pretty vague.

Right now, they're asking for a $200 commitment with no clear cancellation policy and unclear definitions of their security services. I would not make the jump until they addressed both those points.

 

[sfx2000]

People are missing a key point with this device...

Intel is now in the Consumer AP/Router space - they've been dancing around this for a while - mostly in vertical stuff and carrier provided equipment...

<snip>

I do find this device quite interesting - as I did the D-Link device a while back... we were getting close to a mon0-culture as far as HW - enough so that one could flash a competitors firmware on another device, and that's not good for the ecosystem...

2016 has been kinda fun - lots of interesting things going on compared to where we were a year ago...

 

[RMerlin]

Right now, they're asking for a $200 commitment with no clear cancellation policy and unclear definitions of their security services. I would not make the jump until they addressed both those points.

That's the problem. When you pay a company like Zyxel/Cisco/Barracuda/etc for a service, you know what you're getting into. With a startup, you have two potential issues: 1) not entirely sure what you get for such a hefty amount of money, 2) will they still be there in 2-3 years from now, or will you have a paper weight? Recently there's been quite a few cloud services closing down, leaving perfectly good hardware into a dead brick state.

At least, in their case, they basically lease you the hardware (19$ is more like the cost of S&H), so that's one good thing in their favor.

 

[Sezen Uysal]

Hi All,

Thanks for covering the Roqos Core router and the Roqos service here. I also appreciate great questions, especially the one on Roqos service cancellation. We have updated our website with the following clause. T&C will be updated accordingly soon.

"Your satisfaction is guaranteed with 30-day money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with your Roqos service within first 30 days, you can return your Roqos Core and get your initial payment back in full with no further commitment. Furthermore, after 12 month paid service, if you change your mind, you can choose to terminate your service by sending a request at Roqos Support Center. Pre-order yours now. Shipment will start in September."

From an engineer to engineer, the Roqos Core router is currently the most powerful, scalable and easy-to-use cybersecurity router in the home networking market. Even if Roqos is a service company to simplify the router setup and usage with Roqos Cloud and Roqos App, we needed to build our own hardware as we couldn't find anything we could use in the market. The board is designed for future growth instead of embedding parts on the board which would cut the BOM cost dramatically. Roqos service will provide hardware upgrades for new features if necessary, as well as it provides warranty during the service term. So you don't have to keep buying new networking hardware every year or so.

Regarding cybersecurity features, as our service designed for residential market, we couldn't put too much detail on how it works. Basically it is an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) doing deep packet inspection implemented by open source software called Suricata used by many enterprises. We also use many opensource software such as iptables, nmap, arpwatch, iperf, etc. to protect your network while giving unique and powerful features. We have years of networking experience that we want to use them to make a difference in home networking. We will not stop here, we are cooking many new features, in WIFI expansio, IOT and other areas. Source code is available from the original sources, as we haven't modified them, per GPL license.

Roqos Core is not only open source router, it also provides root access. Best way to explore our software and features is to sign up for a service, receive the Roqos Core WiFi router, and then login as "admin" with password "roqos" and then look at every corner (with sudo command) which we are proud to show off. If you are not satisfied with what you see, you can always return it and get the full money back within first 30 days. That's my word.

Startups are always risky, but we are not an average one, we used funds coming from the sale of our previous company Simena, LLC acquired by Netscout Systems, Inc. Currently we don't have debts or raised money from VCs. Financially we are in good shape. But we need your support to sustain our growth and continue providing innovative features. You can pre-order your service at http://roqos.com.

If you have any other questions or suggestions for Roqos Core or Roqos service please do not hesitate sending me an email at info@roqos.com.

Thanks again for the consideration.

Sezen Uysal
CEO
Roqos, Inc.

 

[Sezen Uysal]

Hmmmm I cannot find any download link for their firmware sources?

@tim, how about a little wireless review on this one, the specs are cool, what's missing is the info if the firmware is based on opensource and if the wireless is any good.

Roqos Core firmware is based on opensource CoreBoot (www.coreboot.org/). It also has two Qualcom based WiFi modules (2x2 802.11n and 3x3 802.11ac) as well as 5 internal antennas. If you want to get more information on it, login as admin/roqos and run "sudo lspci" and "sudo dmidecode" commands.

 

[Sezen Uysal]

Looks like Atom E3845 (1.9GHz, 4 cores) - odd choice, but the giveaway is the HDMI and USB3 ports, which are native to that chip, along with the two SATA ports (one is mSATA, which is situation between the 5GHz m-PCIe card and the 2.4GHz m-PCIe card. Note that these are not M.2 connectors (not a big deal).

E-series is a bit cheaper than the Baytrail N or J series, and it has the benefit of AES-NI - so this is a good choice - wonder why they didn't use the C-series... unless they have a need for the HDMI output (most C-series do not have graphics).

2.4GHz - looks like QC-Atheros, I'm guessing that the 5GHz probably is as well. These look like they're hanging off the PCIe bus (E-series has 4 lanes, can be configured as 4 1x lanes, which makes sense)

Broadcom gets the win, at least for the GBe switch, looks like also for the WAN side NIC as well - hard to tell

Other comments - looks like we have a UART available - and a couple of USB headers (look to the right of the CPU and down in the lower left hand corner)...

This could be a fun little hacker board actually...

Not a cheap one - rough bill of materials estimate would be right around $135 in volume, depending on the size of the mSATA, which I'm guess is 32GB (I suppose I could look up the part number since it's easily seen)

Great observations! SATA is 8GB which is plenty for our software and saving usage data in MongoDB. NICs are Intel i211 which works well with E3845 CPU supporting Intel's DPDK for packet acceleration.

 

[sfx2000]

Great observations! SATA is 8GB which is plenty for our software and saving usage data in MongoDB. NICs are Intel i211 which works well with E3845 CPU supporting Intel's DPDK for packet acceleration.

Yep - sorry about the QCA, sometimes one has to look at board pics and reverse things from there - both would be good choices - so I'll correct myself now - BRCM for the WiFi perhaps? Both are good choices on the WiFi side...

I'm familiar with the SDK on the technical side, and I get the business case.... including the reference to Mongo...

If you're looking for a systems/platform guy with deep connections - contact me - I think you guys have an interesting solution that plays well for uCPE devices in an SDN environment...

I'd be happy to push all the chips in and see where it goes...

 

[Sezen Uysal]

Yep - sorry about the QCA, sometimes one has to look at board pics and reverse things from there - both would be good choices - so I'll correct myself now - BRCM for the WiFi perhaps? Both are good choices on the WiFi side...

I'm familiar with the SDK on the technical side, and I get the business case.... including the reference to Mongo...

If you're looking for a systems/platform guy with deep connections - contact me - I think you guys have an interesting solution that plays well for uCPE devices in an SDN environment...

I'd be happy to push all the chips in and see where it goes...

Unfortunately, Broadcom still does not support host mode on their WiFi chips with their Linux driver. Broadcom has not told us when it will be available. Qualcom/Atheros is the only player here.

We are currently doing Friends&Family shipping before we ship to whole public. If you want to get yours early and evaluate the unit please let me know, I can arrange something.

 

[sfx2000]

Unfortunately, Broadcom still does not support host mode on their WiFi chips with their Linux driver. Broadcom has not told us when it will be available. Qualcom/Atheros is the only player here.

We are currently doing Friends&Family shipping before we ship to whole public. If you want to get yours early and evaluate the unit please let me know, I can arrange something.

Would be happy to help out.

 

[sfx2000]

Updated/Summary Board Walk-thru based on conversations..

SoC is Atom E3845 (1.9GHz, 4 cores) - the giveaway is the HDMI and USB3 ports, which are native to that chip, along with the two SATA ports (one is mSATA, which is situation between the 5GHz m-PCIe card and the 2.4GHz m-PCIe card.

Atom E-series has the benefit of AES-NI, unlike Baytrail-D(J-series) or Baytrail-M(N-Series) - so this is a good choice - good choice, cost efficient and relatively stout - one must ask about that HDMI port, as this could be interesting to use in the future...

2.4GHz - confirmed it is QC-Atheros, same with 5GHz. These are running off the PCI-e lanes (one each), with the other lane going to a 1GBe Intel NIC - lots of bandwidth here.

With regards to the WiFi, N300 in 2.4GHz is more than sufficient, 99 percent of 2.4GHz clients are two streams or less, so no need to go further - 3*3:3 on the 5GHz side, also the right call - no need for more than that...

(it's doesn't fit within the "bigger numbers are better" marketing charts, but this is a sound engineering decision, and allows Roqos to invest more in other areas with no hit to WiFI performance)

Broadcom gets the win for the GBe switch, and again, good choice...

8GB mSATA for internal resources, plus the SATA2 port is populated (just the data side, no power header, but that's easy to solve off the circuitboard)

Then we still have the USB external port if additional storage is needed.

Other comments - looks like we have a UART available - and a couple of USB headers (look to the right of the CPU and down in the lower left hand corner)...

This could be a fun little hacker board actually... and a very stout Home/Small Business Router.

There's enough capability in here to function in pretty much any role within a Cloud/Software Defined Network environment. This could be used as a router, a NAS, a settop box (good reason for the HDMI port) - so it's basically a universal box, and the software components, along with HW choices, it is a good platform to work with. With CoreBoot, it's fairly open, and I'm willing to bet it's not running OpenWRT (even though it could) - gut tells me that Debian or RedHat could easily fit on there, and run very nicely, and still be fanless and low power draw.

(removed BOM estimate, as it's not relevant, but it's a scalable design with regards to storage and memory)

This is not a cheap build - high quality components across the board - a good example is the CPU voltage regulators - take a look at them, they're not the typical ESR caps, these are much higher quality, with longer lifespan and better performance in high load/high temp conditions.

From a device perspective, these guys absolutely got it right... If the same level of care and attention is there at the software and services layer, then this is a winner!

Well Done!

sfx

 

[sfx2000]

Nice mention here... this is one of the more interesting Router/AP's from startup land I've seen...

http://hackerboards.com/debian-based-wifi-router-adds-security-and-parental-controls/

"According to an email from Sezen Uysal, founder and CEO of Roqos, customers are provided with “login access to the unit with ‘sudo’ capabilities, so that an advanced user can use the systems as standard router,” and add new open source software."
​

Would be fun to get my hands on one...

 

[Blexley]

Does the router stop working if you don't continue the subscription after 12months?

 

[L&LD]

Does the router stop working if you don't continue the subscription after 12months?

The router stops working whenever they want it to (i.e. they shut down their servers).

Even if you renew for another 12 month subscription, there is no guarantee they will honor it (to the end). (See every other 'cloud' service that decided it was worth more to them to shut down than continue being of 'service' to their customers.

 

[Blexley]

Anybody know if this router still works as a standard router without the cloud integration?

 

[L&LD]

Anybody know if this router still works as a standard router without the cloud integration?

Read thread (even first post states what the 'product' they're selling, actually is.

Short answer: NO.