[topspin]

Thanks for the useful explanation.

Despite another comment claiming this was "common" in the US, I've been on a number of ISPs in the US and never seen PPPoE used at all. Had no idea this was still going on. On fiber even!

Seems like I'd get some kind of efficient PPPoE box and put that between the ISP and whatever software router/firewall (PfSense, et al.) or "non specialized" hardware router. I suppose fragmentation could be avoided by limiting packet size a little to make room for the 8 byte PPPoE bits.