PPPoE vs IPoE: A Practical Guide for ISPs (denog17)

Chaos Computer Club - recent audio-only feed

**Is PPPoE really legacy? Is IPoE really better? And what actually happens when something breaks?** This talk takes a hands-on look at PPPoE and IPoE (DHCPv4/v6) in real ISP environments, based on actual deployments, not just specs. We’ll walk through the key operational differences that show up when things get serious: high availability, failover, MTU handling, multicast, and how dual-stack plays out in practice. We’ll also dive into the hidden pain points, like why hardware offloading fails in unexpected places, why VLAN models (N:1 vs 1:1) must be considered here, and how session state behaves when routers crash or links go dark. There’s no silver bullet, but you’ll leave this session with a clear picture of the trade-offs. Whether operating PPPoE or IPoE, or stuck managing both, this talk gives you the good, the bad, and the “we didn’t see that one coming”. If you’ve ever had to troubleshoot weird subscriber issues at 2 AM or explain to management why “it’s complicated”, this talk is for you. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 about this event: https://pretalx.com/denog17/talk/RMB983/