Integrator Marc Moore can’t remember which booth it was at CEDIA Expo 2023, but it was one of the many exhibitors touting remote access to customers’ systems. Since these solutions oftentimes trace issues stemming from routers that need rebooting, he had a simple but bold question: What if we didn’t need to reboot routers anymore?

While that might have sounded far-fetched, Moore had concrete evidence to support the query. The principal of Tomorrow Entertainment in Calhoun, Ga., enthusiastically states that he’s been using PerfTech’s Island Router in his home for a while vetting the product – as he typically does for new solutions – and exclaims the product has worked flawlessly.

“When I first got my first Island Router here at my place and put my 60 devices or whatever it was on it, the days of rebooting were over – literally,” Moore enthuses. “Here we are, a year-and-a-half later, and I haven’t rebooted anything. Not once.”

After implementing routers from Cisco, eero, and Comcast on projects, Moore met with PerfTech EVP of Island Sales Tom Gallo at a CEDIA Tech Summit and quickly became intrigued and impressed by the Island Router.

Situated about halfway between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tenn., Moore works with affluent clientele who seek bulletproof network coverage, especially considering it is predominantly rural residences.

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Considering the reliability and premium price tag, he saw the solution as perfectly fitting the bill for his portfolio – he just needed to know more about this company he’d never heard of before.

“We have a whole industry that has blossomed around rebooting things,” Moore states. “Tom was [at the Summit] with his little table and this little bubble thing I remember looking down at on this table. And I’m like, What is that, it’s pretty cool looking.”

When Gallo mentioned the Island Router has an MSRP of $1,299, Moore thought he was crazy at first. Then he started seeing it as an opportunity to sell his discerning customer base on it.

“At the time I didn’t know anything. But if it’s good, then we have control over selling a high-end router, not just because it’s expensive but because we need it,” he recalls. “That’s something that I can sell. You know, we need something better than the me-too router.”

The Island Router Delivers Impressive Advantages

If you hadn’t heard of PerfTech’s Island Router yet, you will. The product launched last April, after CEDIA Expo 2022 in which the company aimed to create exposure and awareness to the custom integrator channel.

“Our product is really geared for the high-end residential or residential that has lots and lots of devices. And let’s face it, every home now is starting to have tons and tons of IoT devices,” states PerfTech Director of Communications Kathy Donzis.

That’s an understatement. Incredibly, the Island Router supports up to 5,000 devices and up to 1,000 connection tunnels like VLANs, VPN connections, and interfaces. Additionally, it delivers up to 3.7Gbps, max packet rate per second of 2 million+, and over 130,000 max connections per second.

How is that possible? Well, the product is truly an enterprise-grade solution that PerfTech has brought to the custom residential market after 20+ years of experience serving the commercial sector. It also has an app that “everybody raves about,” Donzis says, which should also make residential integrators happy.

As opposed to residential products that can crossover into commercial applications, this reverse maneuver actually scaled down for the residential market while maintaining its rock-solid construction and software special sauce, Donzis notes.

“So, you’d be hard pressed to find another residential router that can give you that kind of capacity. It’s because we have really premium-grade hardware, and we’ve written our own software,” she says. “It’s proprietary software and it’s not brand new – we’ve been honing this software for 20 years and it’s largely the software we use in our current carrier product that supports 5 million users.”

It’s an eye-opening solution for sure, and in a market where the home networking has gone into overdrive ever since the start of the pandemic, PerfTech has proven itself to those who have familiarized themselves with the Island Router.

PowerHouse Alliance members 21st Century Distributing, Davis, Mountain West, PMC, Sierra Select, and DSG Distributors are providing distribution of the product. On the manufacturer’s rep side, the company continues to expand and cover various regions of the country: Rep firms include DSG Metro (Northeast); Tandem Marketing (North Central); SoundTech (West); and Bell & McCoy (South Central/Gulf Coast).

“Our technical support group have been training the rep firms’ staffs so that they can then support and train on our product,” says Director of Marketing Rhonda Grimm. She adds that during 21st Century’s recent virtual roadshow, the company attracted over 100 visitors, including 90 who attended a training session.

Becoming the ‘IT Guy’ in Addition to AV & Automation

Getting back to Moore and Tomorrow Entertainment, the roughly 40-year-old integration company has a history of delivering cutting-edge products to its rural clientele. The company cut its teeth selling high-end, big-dish satellite systems back in the day.

Now, the same can be said of the enterprise-grade home networks being sold and integrated.

“Like or not, we don’t have a choice. We’re there,” Moore says of the category and going beyond the usual AV installations. “So, whether we’re networking guys or not, we have to deal with it right?”

Tomorrow Entertainment entered the category “kicking and screaming,” he recalls. “Like most AV integrators, we began to go into IT stuff and basically got as good as we needed to be at the beginning to understand what was going on, but always looked at it as a requirement, meaning it didn’t make us any money.”

He says network switches and wireless access points were more breakeven products, and the integrator was unable to charge enough for their services because it wasn’t viewed as a networking company with the proper expertise. Moreover, Tomorrow Entertainment struggled to find strong IT personnel who could also work with other technology.

“I tried that approach where you go hire an IT guy and put him on AV or something. That’s not their realm, so you can’t do that,” he comments. “You have to take an AV guy and turn them into an IT guy on some level, because if you take an IT guy, you’ll never turn them into an AV guy.”

“What they want is function and quality first, form second, and then everything else is after that – whether it’s brand names, whatever,” he explains. “They want performance on top, reliability, ease of use. All that stuff is number one. Everything else about who it is [installing the solutions] and our reputation, all that stuff is second.”

Meanwhile, what most integrators want is to know that their vendor partners will be around for a long time to assist with support, training, sales & marketing, and new products. In PerfTech, Moore and other dealers can rest assured the manufacturer isn’t going anywhere.

As Grimm notes, in talks with dealers that angle is simple to address and it boosts their interest.

“They’re like, OK, so you’re going to be here for a while. This is not your first rodeo,” she remarks, noting the company holds 50+ patents on networking technology.

PerfTech has gained hundreds of integrators and is constantly in touch with its rep firms and “very active dealers” in its database of contacts.

It certainly helps to have dealers such as Moore evangelizing the product.

“I’ve sold three dealers on Island and have done several hours of technical support,” he says. “One dealer I got hooked on was 20 years into business. One was 22 years into business, and one was about 12.

“All three were really, really neophytes in networking. I didn’t realize how smart I am until I got talking to these guys – and I’m not very smart in networking,” he adds jokingly. “So it gives me a it gives me a peek into the industry about where we are, and we’re not networking guys.”

And even when Moore thought he finally encountered an issue with the router at home, the problem proved to be another product’s fault.

“It was really funny. We had a I had a lock up one time, and I’m like, Here we go, my first Island [error]. I can’t say I’ve never rebooted anymore,” he recounts. “I go downstairs – and it turned out not to be the router. I picked the problem and left the Island alone and everything worked still. So, I’m like the idea that we have to reboot is over.”

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