I was recently stuck with trying to set up a UniFi Dream Machine on an NBN FTTN connection, and being FTTN it was delivered over VDSL, not Ethernet. As such, the device connecting to the NBN had to have a VDSL modem to connect to the internet.

Aussie Broadband supplied the client with a NetComm NF20MESH wifi VDSL modem/router, and apparently according to the internet, this device can be configured in Bridge Mode, which means we can use it as a dumb modem and hook up the Dream Machine behind it.

As it turns out however, it wasn’t as straightforward it could have been – whilst the UI had an option to put it in bridge mode, it didn’t really seem to do what it said it was going to do.

Fortunately, Daniel Michaels has a solution.

To set bridge mode do the following:

• Disable wifi 2.4/5g and stop SSID being broadcast
• Remove all connections
• Disable DHCP on v4 and v6
• Add ptm and eth connections back as bridge mode

And just like that, it’s finally reduced to a dumb modem in bridge mode.