Re: draft-arberg-pppoe-mtu-gt1492-00

On Thursday 07 July 2005 12:30 pm, Vernon Schryver wrote:

> I've not noticed an answer to the question of why it would not be
> better to switch to ordinary IP/PPP ...
> ... Why wouldn't that be at just as easy to implement

Re-architecting "zillions of DSL lines" that work today, (albeit with a sucky 
MTU of 1492), to use plain old IP, while a laudable goal, would be a 
provisioning nightmare. It means every customer's setup needs to change. I 
don't believe any of the big providers would have the stomach for it.

Running PPPoE and IP in tandem might be feasible, but it still imposes 
additional administrative costs. The provider I have spoken to about this 
issue assured me that they will not support multiple delivery protocols any 
time soon.

A point-release software upgrade to a provider's PPPoE-based equipment is a 
more attainable goal, and it is certainly easier to implement, since it does 
not break or change the existing client-side provisioning. That would at 
least offer a DSL customer like myself the possibility of getting a compliant 
IP service, without altering the service for customers that are happy 
with/unaware of the limitations of their current service. 

This may not be a "technically satisfying" solution, (it's a kludge to fix 
something that was a bad idea to begin with), but it seems to me like it is 
the only compromise that stands a chance of getting existing DSL customers 
out of the "1492" hole, without requiring a massive re-provisioning exercise. 
I would rather see this "kludge", (and its limitations), formalized in an 
Informational RFC than implemented in an ad-hoc way.

John Fitzgibbon


On Thursday 07 July 2005 12:30 pm, Vernon Schryver wrote:
> > From: "Jerome Moisand" <[email protected]>
> >
> > Please note that this entire discussion applies to tens of millions of
> > DSL lines worldwide. So this is quite a real-life situation.
>
> Please!  There are zillions of DSL lines, but the proposal is not about
> real-life until and unless it becomes a widely implemented de facto
> standard.  If theoretical or claimed market size were tantamount to
> real-life, then we'd be using ISO OSI suite today, along with a lot
> of other things that somehow ever crossed from claimed market potential
> to what some of us understand as reality.
>
> I've not noticed an answer to the question of why it would not be
> better to switch to ordinary IP/PPP, perhaps BP instead of IPCP,
> from PPPoE.  Why wouldn't that more of any available MTU increase from
> 802.3 jumbo frames?  Why wouldn't that be at just as easy to implement
> in in all of the boxes that will need new firmware or software for
> any change?  Why wouldn't it be at least as robust?
>
>
> Vernon Schryver    [email protected]
>
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