Sun Apr 29, 2018 4:30 am
I'm with you. To me, this whole licensing scheme looks like relict from the past. It made sense when MikroTik's main business was software. If you sell RouterOS to hobby user, who uses it to connect his PC, notebook and two mobile phones, and you also sell the same RouterOS to ISP who uses it to connect thousands of customers, it doesn't seem wrong when the latter costs more.
To MikroTik's credit, they don't limit features in hard way, i.e. that lower level licenses wouldn't have them at all. Any license level can use any feature, and the difference is just some limit (e.g number of VPN users). And it's a great thing (not the limit, but that features are not completely blocked). The only exception is AP mode in L3 and it sucks.
One can try to apply similar logic as before (hobby user vs. big ISP). Why shouldn't someone, who needs the extra feature (AP mode) pay more than someone who doesn't? It's hard to completely dismiss that. But then you look at product line. Your RB911G-2HPnD is $49 and has only L3. But even tiny little $19.95 hAP mini has L4. And it's not the worse comparison, you can find L3 as high as in $179 product.
Nearest for you is $79 RB912UAG-2HPnD. It has more hardware options, and even though you don't need them, the extra $30 is better then $45 for L4 license you could buy for RB911 (no one in their right mind would do that). Perhaps if there was an option to upgrade L3 to L4 for $10 or so, it could be considered fair. But at MikroTik, they don't belive in upgrades. To quote the manual: "Just like you can't easily upgrade your car's engine from 2L to 4L just by paying the difference, you can't switch license levels as easily.", which I call pure nonsense. Because, you know, unlike car engines, licenses can be changed by one mouse click.
And it's not just AP mode, when you think about it, any limit is pointless when RouterOS is bundled with hardware. If hAP mini had L6, with unlimited PPPoE tunnels instead of current 200, would it undermine sales of CCR? I'm sure that "no" is the safe answer.
Maybe MikroTik will re-evaluate licensing one day. Until then, tough luck...