A client of mine was using Bell DSL. His Bell router was bridged and fed a Trendnet router that I put in, plus a 24 port switch and so on. It’s been working fine for a few years.

Client drops bell and switches to Primus who sends him a new DSL router. He connects it in place of the old Bell and asks the Primus guy to bridge it. Primus says that bridging is old tech and the Trendnet is not compatible. He has internet coming out of the Primus but nothing coming through the Trendnet when it’s connected.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard of bridging an ISP router being old tech and not compatible with third party routers.

I’m sorry I don’t have any more details. I’m still collecting info.

Am I missing something? I feel like maybe the Primus guy just doesn’t know how to bridge his router.

Thanks.

Craig

"Old tech"... heh, that's kinda like going to a restaurant and them saying "oh, we don't let you pick what you eat or how it's prepared... that's old fashioned. We just go ahead and give you food."

Yes, I can see why he might say that because in the old days you really "had" to do things that way, and now you can just plug in their "smart" modem/router/wifi AP combo, not configure anything, and magically have the interwebs in your house... but that's just for the masses who don't care.

This Primus page has some instructions on bridging a Primus DSL modem. No idea how it relates to the model your customer has.

[Link: primus.ca]

You'll have to scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page to the "SmartRG 505n Bridge Mode" heading.

No reason the Trendnet shouldn't be able to get "double NAT'd" internet if you turn off PPPoE on it, enable DHCP for all settings, and just configure it to work like you would with a standard cable modem. But that's slower, and useless for any kind of UPnP or port forwarding that may be needed.

Primus may not "officially" support it, ie. they don't want to have to provide connectivity support on your customer's router, but there should definitely be a way to bridge whatever modem is being used. Get the brand/model number to start.

Sounds like typical service provider tech training. They are told to do things that limit service calls for them.

Thanks guys.

I told him to call back and ask someone else. He did and that guy gave him instructions on bridging. It still wouldn’t work. His laptop would connect to the Trendnet as before but no internet connection. Unfortunately we were doing this over the phone. There is something amiss for sure. Perhaps even a damaged cable between the Trendnet and the Primus. Anyway I simply had him plug the lan cable from the switch into tbt Primus and now he has everything running. When I can get over there myself I’ll sort it out.

Thanks.

If he could take the LAN connection from the switch and plug it into the Primus and everything worked, then it was NOT in bridge mode.

I don't know what has been done in panic mode. At minimum shut down both units, restart the ISP's router, then the Trendnet. If the system works with the Trendnet set aside, the ISP's box is not bridged. Something is acting as the router.

ATT used an Arris 'gateway' for their service and always told me it couldn't be bridged with NAT disabled to allow using a better router. I hate ATT and their crap. I started using EERO and in the setup, it asks if the modem is standalone or a combo unit with router and it shows 'No Problem' next to the area with combo unit- I tried it and it worked fine, so options exist.

One of the problems with bridging some combo units is that when an update is sent, it sometimes reverts some settings to their default.

With uverse i just put the unit into dmz and create a static route to my router.

Normally, even without bridged mode enabled, you can put another router behind the service providers router, and still get internet. Usually the only thing bridged mode adds is letting outside traffic access your network. Makes me wonder if the ISP’s tech totally has stuff screwed up on your wiring

How about just ditching the ISP modem all together and bring your own modem? We do that all the time. And it usually saves the ISP rental fee

Depends on the kind of service being offered. That works fine for ADSL, but last time I checked, Bell wouldn't let you supply a VDSL modem for their network.

Indeed. I warned him that when I had him plug the LAN cables into the Primus router, and it worked, that it was not bridged.

Right now it works, and he’s happy. We found a 9pm Saturday night on the phone solution.

I don’t have any static IPs in this system so this is fine for now. When I go to his house I’ll see if any extra actions are required.

Thanks for everyone’s input.

For our cable internet clients we provide a modem that has no router in it. For our DSL clients, we gave up on bridging, and just assign our router a static IP and put it in a DMZ on the DSL modem/router. Too many times the modems were reset either by the client or by the ISP. I do not know how many times I have gone to a job, look at the ISP modem/router and see the wi-fi has been turned back on. Bugs the hell out of me. And when I bring it up, no one knows a thing of course.

Some people, when the internet stops working, are just smart enough to know which box does that, and they also know they should always call the ISP first and follow their instructions to reset the modem. LOL. And yes, this is after the first time they did it, and were charged a service call for us to come sort it out for them, and they were given explicit instructions not to do that again. :)

Same IP address range dished out from the modem that your Trendnet is using for its own LAN IPs? If so, it will get confused and not work.

Did you also verify that they are plugged them modem into the WAN port on the Trendnet and not one of the switch ports?

I sorted it out. Client had not gone into the trend net router and put in the new password and username from Primus. Still had the Bell password and username. All is well.

Thanks everyone.

Oh and good call about a static IP and the DMZ. I like that idea. For systems like Bell Fibe where I can’t bridge the router.