Wireless Reviews

Features

Logging into router admin lands you at the Status page shown below. Administration is via HTTP only, even when remote admin access is enabled.

Figure 3: TRENDnet TEW-812DRU Wizard page

Routing features include the following:

• Static, DHCP, PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP WAN connection types
• MTU adjust for PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP only
• DHCP server with reservations
• Up and downlink bandwidth-based QoS with five levels in each direction
• DMZ
• Static routes
• Schedulable Single port forwarding (Virtual Server) with separate public and private ports
• Schedulable port range forwarding
• Schedulable triggered port forwarding
• Schedulable outbound service blocking
• Schedulable URL filtering
• UPnP enable / distable
• WAN ping block
• DynDNS.com, no-ip.com dynamic DNS support
• POP, SMTP, RTP, RTSP, WMP/MMS, SIP, H.323, FTP, TFTP, Telnet, MSN messenger and VPN pass through ALGs

The 812DRU's feature set covers the basics and a bit more. Of particular note are its QoS controls, which are bandwidth-based and work for both downlink and uplink internet traffic. So if you know the ports of the application you want to control, you can apply them to either an IP or MAC address.

TRENDnet has added IPv6 handling to the 812DRU, but it's pretty basic. For the WAN, you can only enter an IPv6 network prefix. On the LAN side, you can set 6to4 or Native IPv6 modes independently for "Internal" and Guest networks.

For wireless controls, on the plus side you get four SSIDs on each radio, with each SSID getting its own security mode and MAC association filters. You also get WDS bridging and repeating so that you can use a second 812-DRU as an AC1300 bridge.

TRENDnet TEW-812DRU Wireless basic settings - 5 GHz

On the negative side, there are no controls to keep wireless clients isolated from each other or for separating wireless from wired traffic. There is also no transmit power adjust for either band or ability to schedule wireless on and off time.

Radio mode controls are also surprisingly simple, with only an 802.11n mode control for each radio with only Auto and Off settings. You do, however, get the ability to control the maximum MCS (link) rate on both radios.

A summary of other key wireless features is in Table 2, along with their defaults. Note that the 5 GHz radio is missing Channel 165, which some other routers support.

For a full feature tour, use the emulator and download the user manual.