Industrial vs SOHO Class: A Comparison

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differences between industrial class and SOHO class for Router / Modem

As we know, the devices mainly cover three classes, that is SOHO class, Industrial class and Military class.  Each class has its own application requirement. The SOHO class modem and router don’t meet the requirements of the industrial environment and standard entirely because of it is designed for office automation. Mainly differences are the below,

1. Control

The SOHO class is simple design for internet use. People no need control it very often.
The industrial class is designed mainly for industry applications. People need control it quite often, even 7*24 hours.

2. Stable, reliable and robust
SOHO class features are simply. It is mainly used for internet surfing, which is installed in house. People can check and assist it in time. With cost requirement, SOHO class design and development will not care too much for the stability and reliability. The industrial class cares the stability and reliability very much because it’s mainly installed under people’ touch. In another world, it should be working for 7*24 hours without people assist. So the industrial class must have good reliability, recoverability, and maintainability in the production environment at the same time. It is a guarantee that it will not lead the collapse of applications, operating system even the network when any component failure occurs in a network system.

3. The security issues
Lots of fields exist inflammable, explosive or toxic gases inevitably in the process of industrial production, and there must have some certain explosion-proof technology for the intelligent devices and communication equipment which can ensure the safety of industrial field. It is much more practical to add explosion-proof and explosion-proof measures in the Ethernet system under the condition of current technology, namely the ignition energy which caused by the devices problem will not leak through increasing explosion-proof measures to the Ethernet field devices, which can ensure the safety of running system. For those dangerous situation where is no strict safety requirements, you can not consider complex explosion-proof measures.  
The network safety of industrial system is another security issue must be considered at the industrial Ethernet applications. Industrial Ethernet can make the traditional three layers of the network system, namely, information management layer, process monitoring layer and field equipment layer, an organic whole, which make the faster data transfer, higher real-time and it can integrate with the Internet seamlessly, it realizes data sharing and improves the operational efficiency of the factory. But there is a series of network security problems at the same time, industrial network may under the threat of virus infection, hackers and illegal operation.

4. The vehicle power supply issues
The vehicle power supply refers to the cable connected to the field devices not only to transmit data signals, but also provide equipment working power supply on-site. The Ethernet hasn’t considered this issue from the design at the beginning, while there are a lot of bus power supply requirements on the industrial site. Because of the above problems, the ordinary commercial Ethernet cannot be applied to the control of industrial field directly. And the industrial Ethernet is produced to solve these problems.

5. Features and performance
The industrial class owns much more features and SOHO class, such as connection alive monitor and keeping, Dual Sim connection, multi-line redundancy, GPS, Serial ports, VPN networks, high gain and special antenna replacement, etc.