TRENDnet TEW 652BRP - wireless router

2/10 MAC Filtering is ridiculous

usertaken - 05/13/09  (Edited: 05/13/09)

I had to resort to MAC filtering as one of my wireless devices did not support security encryption. To my surprise, the MAC Filtering on this device only means it would not allow other devices (i.e. devices not in the MAC table) from accessing the Internet. But they can access my network and access any of the devices already on my network. I found this out only because one of my neighbors' device requested to share my media library. On further investigating found that they were connected to my router even tough they were not in the MAC table. This is scary and if you plan to use the router with similar setup, stay away from this router. This is not even documented anywhere though if you look at the help (from the router's admin/setup page), it mentions something similar but not very clear. The tech support was also not aware of this and wanted me to reset the device and start all over again. If it has happened once, I am not going to risk using this device even if reset does the trick. Another thing that surprised me while using MAC filter was, even hard wired machines to this device needs to be added to the MAC table to access Internet. This though not a big problem is not documented.