Not sure about how it is, but 6 months back, I tried getting bridge mode activated on airtel via service guys and customer care on our office connection, and both of them did not even know what it was, though I certainly didnt email, I’ll try this out.
Do you have any idea about Jio? My folks are pretty used to JioTv and its OTT add-ons, so we are stuck with Jio at our home for the forseeable future
If you’re asking about bridge mode on Jio, I mentioned that my friend’s Jio ONT allows him to enable bridge mode and configure it directly on the device.
are you sure about this? can you confirm once with your friend? in my router you can enable it but it just doesn’t work
Yes sir, actually since I have an Airtel ONT, I was curious whether Jio ONTs support bridge mode or not. So I guided my friend on how to access his router settings over Google Meet while he was sharing his screen. I saw it myself—bridge mode was easy to toggle on or off. I’ll share a screenshot with you once he’s available.
No Idea about Jio.
I had briefly tried their Airfiber but that unit was so locked out that user cant even see Signal #s on it.
Currently I use Airtel and ACT in LB/Failover mode and both are in bridged mode
it doesnt work various people tried it and it never worked
Alright, fair enough. But seriously, if bridge mode doesn’t actually work, why leave the button there? Might as well label it “for decoration only.”
Almost all smaller ISPs use CGNAT so using bridge mode is pretty irrelevant anyway. Airtel fiber (ipv6, ipv4 only possible by paying extra for static ip per month), Jio fiber (ipv6) & bsnl fiber (ipv4) at least provide you public non-CGNAT IP which makes it worth it to use bridge mode in ISP provided router.
I personally just suggest using dmz option in ISP provided router which is almost always available & much easier (no requirement to contact customer care). Just connect your router wan port to ISP router lan port & then in ISP router settings set your own router IP as static (aka it always gets same IP based on its mac address from ISP router) & then put that static IP of your own router into the dmz zone of ISP router settings. This way your own router is practically working same as ISP router in bridge mode with just one slight con of having an extra NAT but if you don’t care about a few milliseconds of delay then practically it is same as ISP router in bridge mode & huge benefit of never having to worry about some update/changes at ISP end stopping your ISP router/own router bridge mode not working.
Yeah, DMZ has always been at the back of my mind as a solid fallback if bridge mode doesn’t work out. I was just trying to go for bridge mode mainly because it gives a cleaner network setup — no double NAT, easier port forwarding, and fewer chances of weird compatibility issues with certain apps or protocols.
Plus, with bridge mode, your own router handles everything — DHCP, firewall, routing — without having to rely on the ISP’s device doing any of the work. Just feels more “complete” in terms of control. That said, I totally agree — if the ISP drags their feet or locks down the ONT config, DMZ is a very practical and stable workaround.
Thank you!
Well, double nat is irrelevant anyway for a CGNAT isp provider because that is like complaining why this road has 40kmph speed limit when that road is always having traffic jams with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Ease of port forwarding will be same in both cases & performance should be same too. I don’t know of any such weird compatibility issues with certain apps/protocols with using dmz setup with own router doing nat/firewall.
The same is true for dmz setup with own router too. ISP’s router is only spending 1 millisecond/1% of its cpu power to direct all traffic coming/going from your own router in dmz zone bypassing all the security/firewall of ISP router.
Of course if you can get your ISP router setup in bridge mode not minding all the hassle to achieving it then that is a better option. 
Yeah, that’s a good way to look at it. Bridge mode was more appealing to me just to fully cut out the ISP device from the equation, but practically speaking, DMZ does the job well enough in most cases. Honestly, half the battle is just avoiding unnecessary calls to customer support, so if it works reliably, that’s a win in my book.
Btw, Airtel gives CGNAT only on IPv4 nowadays so make sure to get IPv6 but you will get only /64 address space from airtel meaning you cannot “separate” your main wifi network & guest/IoT wifi network by assigning different IPv6 ranges to them. If you have security concerns or don’t understand how IPv6 works in such scenarios then stick to IPv4 CGNAT & disable IPv6 in airtel/own router.
Honestly, unless someone knows exactly what they’re doing with IPv6 firewalling, it’s probably safer to just stick with IPv4 + CGNAT and disable IPv6 altogether. Less headache, fewer surprises.
What about just taking the ISP router out of equation? Put your own ont and bypass the ISP router and connect the ont directly into a firewall like opnsense to route aswell.
Not possible for every ISP & every case not to mention even lesser chances of finding someone willing enough to learn/already proficient enough with opensense.