Forum Discussion
How to use bridge mode on Telus NH20A modem
I switched to Telus a week ago and tonight I attempted for a couple hours to set up my own gateway/router using the Telus modem in bridge mode.
Is there an official guide on how to set up bridge mode on the Telus NH20A?
I just want to have access to my full 1.5 Gbps bandwidth on my 2.5GBe network, but the regular LAN ports on the NH20A are all gigabit.
I attempted to follow the insturctions that user Serpentor and supermario left in the discussion thread Telus Pure Fibre in Ontario - PPPoE | TELUS Neighbourhood.
I have a Unifi Cloud Gateway Max and followed these steps in an attempt to get a WAN connection directly using the 10G port.
On my Gateway / Router I set the WAN port settings to the following.
- Connection type set to PPPoE
- VLAN set to 40, and then tried VLAN value of 35.
- Used PPPoE credentials that I found in modem with user name ending in @on.telus.com and 6 letter password (I used the "inspect" feature in my browser to reveal the password).
- Set MTU to 1452 (and tried at default / 1492 beforehand).
I was not successful in getting an internet connection via the bridge mode with any of these settings.
If anyone could share their experience or suggestions I would love to hear it! 🙏🏻
It would be very helpful if Telus would publish detailed instructions on how to set up bridge mode with this modem to ensure that anyone who wants to use their own router, mesh network, gateway, etc. has all the information at their fingertips without having to waste technical support's help on the phone.
3 Replies
While I have a UDM-PRO, I am using Pfsense to route my WAN connection and as my firewall. Unifi software makes this pretty straightforward to do and it seems you have your unifi settings correct. Use VLAN 40, not 35.
You didn't mention your Telus Modem settings. Did you set bridge mode there?
Suggest using Partial bridge mode and assigning bridge port to be the 10G port. That will leave the remaining ports as normal DHCP assigned ports direct using the Telus modem as the router. If you set full bridge mode, you won't be able to access the modem config anymore. If you have already set FULL bridge mode, reset your modem - your PPPOE login settings etc will all stay. Make triple sure you have noted these down correctly.
You may also be getting snagged with conflicting LAN IP DHCP pools. If your Unifi is using 192.168.1.x for the LAN Subnet and the Telus modem is using the same subnet for it's DHCP LAN pool, it won't work. Change your Telus modem to use 192.168.2.x on the LAN side.
feel free to PM me if you have further issues.
Thanks so much for the reply. Yes, I tested bridge mode with “full” first, then reset and tested 10G only once I realized I couldn’t access the modem interface in full/all ports bridge.
Good point on the conflicting DHCP pools, that could be it. Could be a rookie mistake 🤦♂️ I’ll try that out.
I appreciate the support and offer for PM.
Cheers 🍻
Once you have adjusted the LAN DHCP pools, that will allow your router to pull a DHCP address from a non-bridged modem port and run in double-NAT mode. This is a good middle ground while you figure out how to get full bridge mode working and make unifi pull the external WAN IP.
To use double-NAT mode, change your unifi WAN settings back to DHCP or default. You will also need to move your cable to one of the other non-bridged modem ports.It is perfectly fine to leave it this way if you don’t have any advanced need to forward inbound traffic or ports to devices on your internal LAN. Otherwise you will need to configure two firewalls (Telus’ and Unifi) to make the forwards work properly.
