PPPoE explained....?

[paulk29]

Hi Guys,
I'm from Ireland and trying to understand how ADSL works here. It seems it uses ATM and PPPoE, can someone explain how they inter-relate or point me in the right direction?

Thanks

Paul

Paul Kilcoyne B eng. CCNA

 

[jimbopalmer]

If it truly uses ATM, it ought to use PPPoA. PPPoE (and PPPoA) are the means that the ISP has to know that you are a paying customer, without it they would have no idea if you were a customer or not. (The other choice is to register the MAC address of your devices, but then you must register every change in equipment with the ISP, which may be annoying for you and costly for them)

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci214430,00.html

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1416

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/794/pppoa_arch.html

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[hispeedtech]

ADSL uses both PPPoE AND DHCP depending on the ISP and your location. A great example is Verizon. Their customers on the east coast and mid Atlantic states use PPPoE, while their customers in the south and west are still primarily using DHCP (they are upgrading these customers to PPPoE). PPPoE's primary benefit to the ISP is cheaper costs. Since addresses are assigned dynamically, the ISP doesn't need purchase as large an amount of addresses to assign its customers. The customers main benefit is that since addresses are assigned dynamically, they are more secure (in theory at least). The dsl reports link that jimbopalmer gave you in his response is an excellant start for learning more

 

[plshlpme]

PPPOE's main advantage is that it uses authentication.
it builds a tunnel from the dslam to your isp basically...
at that point your isp will decide whether you get a static or dynamic ip.

this also enables all the little isps to coexist as your username that you use when you authenticate will tell your ips bas server where to terminate your tunnel.

the fact that your ip is dynamic doesn't offer any security as their will always be logs at the isp if the right people come looking for them.

many isps will offer you the same dsl line without pppoe but it will cost much more because a pvc has to be statically assigned in their network to get you to your isp.