Is static IP required for enabling bridge mode on Airtel Xstream?

[hashhar]

I placed a call to customer care for enabling some ports as bridged mode on my Airtel Xstream fiber conection which uses the Nokia G-2425G-A router.

The customer care sent a technician to my home who told me that since I don't have a static IP I can't configure the router to bridge mode.

I want to know whether it is actually required or is the Airtel guy trying to upsell me to Rs 199/mo + GST for the static IP? As per my understanding of how networking works I don't think there's any requirement for a static IP to be able to configure a router under bridge mode.

Can the people here please confirm if bridge mode requires static ip or not?

I'm trying to use a UDM Pro as the gateway so want to turn the Nokia into a dumb ONT.

 

[hashhar]

@Chip That's my contingency plan, and thanks for confirming that they can indeed configure bridge with dynamic IP as well.

I do want to see whether a static IP helps with p2p game connectivity but I don't think it would since with UPnP only the initial connection takes time to establish but once done it's the same as a direct connection to my knowledge.

Thanks everyone - I'll update once I have made progress with hopefully some tips for future readers of this post.

 

[Ashbro]

I have bridge mode working, and don't have a static IP, although I have a ZTE router.
When I was dealing with Airtel guys, he also said that I static IP is required, I just casually mentioned to him, I know your tactics, don't try to upsell me, I know for a fact that bridge is working with a lot of my other friends, not far from my place and that too don't have a static IP. NOTE: This might seem like rude, but I communicated this to him in a very polite way with a smlie on my face.

At the end it's all about convincing these people, because they have very less technical know how. If things seem to hit a dead end, ask them that someone else might know what to do, maybe call your senior or some other of your peers, I can talk to them.

Left out a key piece of information, tell them that you'll PPPoE to connect, and then you won't require a static IP, the engineer will tell you that every time you reboot your router, your IP will change, tell him that's fine, it's not gonna be a problem.

 

[Lolita_Magnum]

If you get yourself a Sercomm ONU then you can create yourself as many seperate bridge ports as you want.
For a dumb ONU, it's an okay device that just gets things done.

 

[hashhar]

The person who came this time understood what I was trying to do (my new router/gateway is a rack mount and lives on a shelf for now) and was very helpful.

He did mention that the IP might change on every boot or occasionally in middle of operation which seems ok to me - shouldn't cause any issues for my use case though.

He was a bit angry that he had to come on-site even though all this could be configured at the backend.

So it seems the recipe for success is to keep sending the technician back until a smart technician comes.

 

[hashhar]

Oh, btw it's helpful to say what you want to do. Some keywords include (in order of less technical to more technical)

• Use my own router but not as repeater
• Login using PPPoE
• Open NAT / avoid double NAT

Also make sure to stress to them that you have more than 4 wired devices and you'd like to use advanced features (which are locked down on Airtel router) like VLANs and multiple subnets.

 

[rohitks]

what I feel is many Airtel field engineers fundamentally don't know what you are talking about. So to beat around the bush they give lame excuses.
The problem is they pass the buck by saying you cant enable that or you need static ip or it is not possible or we don't do that and so on.
this list of excuses is endless. When I got my connection I was told that if I enable bridge mode internet will stop working. In my case they did not say anything about static ip.
I have noticed that many engineers do not know what is
1. public ip
2. bridge mode
3. NAT
4. opening ports & port forwarding
they only know how to join wires.
In my area I have a mobile number of a senior backend tech expert and when I get fedup with engineers I call him directly to resolve my tech matters.

 

---

[Jaycyborg]

Hathway tried same static ip trick on me, but with help of IBF forum members input, I was able to configure bridge mode on ZTE 670L and PPPOE on my secondary router. You can view the conversations and solution here PPPOE setup on Hathway boradband - Cheating customers | Hathway Broadband

 

[srikanthl]

I have observed that Airtel assigns WAN IP that starts with 100.* which is not public IP. When you setup your router in bridge mode using dynamic IP, what is the wan IP that you are getting ? I get 100.*

 

[Chip]

@srikanthl if you get a 100.* IP it's a CGNAT, if you want a public static IP then you will need to pay 199+tax/mth

Also, static IP has nothing to do with bridge mode. I am on dynamic IP with a bridge mode and luckily its a public IP 122.* series.

 

[srikanthl]

Yes, you are right, it's CGNAT. You are lucky that you get 122.* as your dynamic public IP. I am thinking whether I should go for static IP at all for security reasons.

Does your Airtel router still get WAN IP after you enabled bridge mode ? In my case after enabling bridge mode (backend team enabled it) Airtel router doesn't get WAN IP. It keeps trying to connect. On my personal router i get WAN ip 100.*