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We are a school and have introduced MAC filtering for staff. I am aware that there are only 128 MAC Filtering addresses available.

bertus_steyn
New Contributor
We are a school and have introduced MAC filtering for staff. I am aware that there are only 128 MAC Filtering addresses available.  
Is there a way that this could be increased? 
If I create a separate SSID, would this make another 128 addresses available on the new SSID?
4 REPLIES 4

daniel_hume_648
New Contributor II
Create a RADIUS server for MAC-Auth, or use DPSK. 

max_o_driscoll
Valued Contributor
Good info above from Monnat and Daniel.

Also:

Basic answer: Yes.

If you are happy using MAC addresses then creating a new SSID "STAFF2" for instance gives you another 128 MAC slots.
Obviously you are now dealing with MAC addresses and more hands on inputting of laptop MACs.
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If you have a radius server and know what's involved excellent. It is a better way to go but far more complex initially.
But it is possible (like me) you don't have one. It is not a simple setup or configuration.
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Be aware that every extra SSID reduces efficiency of your wifi.
To do with broadcasting beacons (ie telling possible clients that SSID exists) more you have more airtime used for broadcasting. Better explanations welcome.

At present have 5 SSIDs here in school (25 APs/circa 100 clients at any time) and used to have many more until a ruckus engineer mentioned the problem (in a long thread a while back discussing MACs and how many SSIDs were acceptable).

If I can find will post link. Searching for my old posts not as easy as you might think!