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My ISP is changing the cabling infrastructure and going forward a direct fiber cable shall drop into my house. As a result ISP is going to provide their own router which they call it as an integrated ONT Modem WiFi router device.

My requirement is to use my own WiFi WAN Ethernet port router at WAN end (Not as AP Mode) so as per my discussion with a senior technician from ISP's end, he confirmed that it’s possible by putting IPS’s router in Bridge mode and then connecting my router.

At the moment they have not shared any procedure, nor the exact model number of their router nor the junior field engineer responsible to do the setup has much idea how to do it. Also such routers are not available in the retail market. So no user manual available. This is some custom build one by Nokia for the ISP.

My Queries:

  • When I put ISP’s router in bridge mode does NAT, DHCP, WiFi, Routing gets auto disabled on it?
  • If ISP’s router has say 4 LAN ports, which one gets bridged? I hope at least one should.
  • If ISP’s routers default IP is say 192.168.1.1 does it still remain the same after bridging?
  • If my routers default IP is 196.168.0.1 does it still hold valid in this setup?
  • Then do I simply put a RJ45 Cable from ISP’s router’s LAN port to WAN port of my router?
  • Are their any other considerations with respect to IP addresses, subnet ect if any of the above is not what I think e.g. 192.168.1.1 for ISP's router is fine in such setup.
  • If this config works, how do I access ISP’s router from my PC, if I want to disable Bridge Mode later and go only with ISP’s router? Will 192.168.1.1 take me there or not? Or does it require some additional networking?

Reason to get this clarity is to be better informed and confidently interact with ISP. Thanks.

samirj
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1 Answers1

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In general, bridge mode in an ONT works exactly the same way as "AP mode" in your wireless router. It turns the device into a layer-2 bridge that doesn't really get involved in IP-level routing.

When I put ISP’s router in bridge mode does NAT, DHCP, WiFi, Routing gets auto disabled on it?

Yes, that's kind of the point of bridge mode.

If ISP’s router has say 4 LAN ports, which one gets bridged? I hope at least one should.

Depends on device. Sometimes it's the first one, sometimes it's all of them.

If ISP’s routers default IP is say 192.168.1.1 does it still remain the same after bridging?

Most likely yes, but it might stop being directly accessible (simply because all your devices no longer have addresses in the same network). If you want to reach the router's management page again, you may need to connect a computer directly (not through another router) and manually configure an IP address from the same 192.168.1.x/24 network.

If my routers default IP is 196.168.0.1 does it still hold valid in this setup?

Yes; the internal IP address is statically configured and on a different interface (not the one that's facing your ISP), so there is no reason for it to change on its own.

Are their any other considerations with respect to IP addresses, subnet ect if any of the above is not what I think e.g. 192.168.1.1 for ISP's router is fine in such setup.

Yeah, 192.168.1.1 is going to work fine, as bridges don't really deal with IP addresses at all. Your own router will be directly sending packets to the MAC address of whatever router is sitting at the ISP far away – not to the ONT's MAC address – which means the ONT won't be processing those packets at IP level at all, just sending them straight out the correct layer-1 port.

If this config works, how do I access ISP’s router from my PC, if I want to disable Bridge Mode later and go only with ISP’s router? Will 192.168.1.1 take me there or not? Or does it require some additional networking?

Recently answered in another thread: 2 routers, IP range changed on main one. unable to access 2nd one anymore

grawity
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