Hmm yeah fly in the ointment there…is that the OP’s present ISP does actually use PPPoE…never mind how inferior it may be. It is what it is.

All the other stuff about optimal WiFi vs VDSL placement is an irrelevance as he wants to use a mesh WiFi solution.

If you can present a workable bridge solution with PPPoE, without double NAT that would be blooming marvellous 😀

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

That would still require a TalkTalk (or another) router to act as the VDSL modem would it not? Presumably then OP is back at square one with double NAT or DMZ quandary.

Well you could just plug an Openreach/Draytek modem straight into the Eero's WAN port and it would work.

I'd be quite happy to lose PPPoE, it would make everything plug-and-play and presumably remove the need for ISPs to terminate lots of PPP sessions.

Edited by jpm (Sun 06-Jun-21 21:23:08)

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Frankly PPPoE in a world of xDSL makes zero sense from a technical perspective. It's nothing more than a hangover from the days of dialup.

Out of interest, how do other shared wholesale networks direct traffic to the right ISP ? I understood Openreach used the username to identify the right VLAN / path to direct the traffic, and the ISP used the username & password to authenticate before providing the public IP. But it has been years since I’ve read the SINs.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 06-Jun-21 21:54:03)

In reply to a post by jpm:

Well you could just plug an Openreach/Draytek modem straight into the Eero's WAN port and it would work.

Where would you enter the ISP’s authentication information? The Draytek 130 modem website says you need to do this in your router, not in their modem.

This was in response to suggesting TalkTalk could be used as an ISP. They don’t use PPPoE on Openreach GEA services so it would work with the Eero that just wants DHCP WAN.

Thanks.

Ok I follow you now.

Incidentally I’m changing over to TTB (on Openreach based FTTP) this week - have been working on the presumption that they use PPPoE as per BT, Cerberus etc on GEA, but it appears this may not be the case and they simply use DHCP. Interesting.

Their online documentation re FTTP is patchy at best, needs a proper update and I’m still waiting to get on boarded properly.

According to their "how do I connect a third party router" page, TalkTalk Business still use PPPoE. I am just talking about the residential service.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Ok I follow you now.

Incidentally I’m changing over to TTB (on Openreach based FTTP) this week - have been working on the presumption that they use PPPoE as per BT, Cerberus etc on GEA, but it appears this may not be the case and they simply use DHCP. Interesting.

Their online documentation re FTTP is patchy at best, needs a proper update and I’m still waiting to get on boarded properly.

Only Talktalk residential use DHCP.

Their business customers use PPPoE.

I'm only aware of Talktalk residential and Sky (also nowtv) who don't use PPP over the OpenReach GEA network.

Edited by j0hn83 (Mon 07-Jun-21 14:50:51)

With any xDSL connection Openreach effectively build a layer two connection to the ISP anyway so ask yourself what does building a PPPoE connection over the top of the existing layer two network bring to the table? You can see this is the case because you can only contact your own ISP's PPPoE servers.

Basically the short answer is not a lot and it has a whole bunch of downsides such as additional latency, a small reduction in the usable bandwidth, and a whole bunch of cost in terminating all those PPPoE sessions.

The alternative is just use the perfectly good layer two network that Openreach build between the cabinet and your ISP. If you really want to authenticate each session then do what Sky does and use option 61 on the DHCP response to have the customers router provide login details. TalkTalk don't even both with that you just have to tag your traffic for VLAN 31 and you are good to go.

If two of the largest ISP's in the country don't feel the need to use PPPoE that should tell you something about the need for it.

I guess it might have been necessary with ADSL as this was done using ATM in the early days for the back haul to the ISP in the UK (you use PPPoA rather than PPPoE), but Ethernet has beaten all other protocols into the ground these days.

In IT you have to regularly step back and ask yourself why am I doing it this way. If you don't you continue in a rut of doing it the way you have always done even though the underlying rational behind those decisions has long since changed making a different approach way more sensible.