Feature Request: Add support for PPPoE

Rollingsound514 Please vote at the top of the thread. Thank You.

@phonejill  Please vote at the top of the thread. Thank  

phonejill I just saw your post. If you have CenturyLink fiber, you can easily get rid of the CenturyLink equipment. I just did it myself last month.

Buy a mikrotik wired router (about $50 on Amazon). It will take the Ethernet feed from your ONT and handle all the PPPoe and vlan tagging. You can use other routers, but lots of people have success in keeping their gigabit speeds with this device (many other routers aren't capable of the symmetrical gigabit up/downlink). Your eeros will still be in bridge mode as the mikrotik will do the routing, but at least you won't have a crappy Zytel equipment. There are several tutorials for this and it was easy enough for me to do it.

DWRocks It's not ideal, but since Eero does not support PPPOE, I make the IP range of the DSL gateway two IP addresses (1 for Eero and 1 for a computer if it were to be connected to the router to access the GUI). Then make the DSL gateway DMZ to the IP address that is assigned to the Eero, allowing all traffic and routing to be handled by the Eero.

I would prefer PPPOE with the gateway in bridge mode, but this allows the full Eero features without having to place the Eero in bridge mode.

Spoonhandle Spoonhandle it's ridiculous we even have to do stuff like that. I just moved and am fortunate enough to live in a CenturyLink fiber zone. Since that gateway device uses a cat5e cable instead of dsl, I was able to buy a $50 mikrotik wired router that handles the PPPoE and vlan tagging. I'm still in bridge mode with my eeros, but at least I got rid of the awful CenturyLink modem/router.

Spoonhandle I had my system/EERO out on a DMZ, but took your advice and limited the IP reservation from 26 addresses down to just 2, ie, the EERO and a second hardwire connection into the router.  I am not sure it will help much, but it cant hurt to limit the lookup table down to just 2 addresses.  As well, my system is double nat addressed, which until there is an PPPoE login capability, seems to be where we are all at.  What I did find for the heavy loading on my system that seemed to crash it at the worst times, looks like it was an IPV6 issue.  I had IPV6 set on my modem/router and on my EERO systems. When you heavily load the system with streaming data, it seems to overload the que on the EEROs, causing almost a "turtle mode" that looks like a frozen system.  I disabled the IPV6 on the modem/router and as well on the EEROs system.  Everything is rock solid now.  Thanks for the suggestion Spoonhandle..

Denash97227 yeah, I've basically given up hope that this will ever happen. I am choosing to stick with CL because their fiber is rock solid and more affordable than the competition and no data cap, which means I am also choosing to stay in bridge mode. Next time I upgrade my routers, it will not be with Eero. For now this works, but it definitely isn't worth the $500 I paid.

@ttnicky, it breaks my heart to have to agree with you. I'm in Product Management and understand well the process of prioritizing feature requests with a supporting business case. Since we already bought these (I bought 4!) with the assumption that certainly one of the largest gb networks in the country would be supported - we won't be buying any more. Now it's a customer sat issue. Many, many other prospects  - who are smart enough to check -  will go with google wifi, orbi etc etc.,  Life lesson.

Denash97227 I’ve tried that. NAT Loopback/Hairpin NAT doesn’t work with this setup. If you don’t need it then you’re golden.  But it’s a requirement for me. 

a.j.singh Good luck, my friend. For me, it allowed me to finally run the Eero's the way they want to run and w/o buying add'tl hardware.  

Denash97227 I can't stand the CL routers, my last one kept losing its connection. I could probably setup a DMZ with my third-party router but I'd need to figure out how.

ttnicky I'm happy to say my CL fiber service has been rock solid for 3 years - up until yesterday, of course 🤣

Denash97227 lol, I am out of town for vacation so I don't know if I was affected or not. I checked the app once I saw the headlines and it reported I was online, but ...?

a.j.singh Can I ask was is the reason you use NAT loopback/Hairpin?  Routing is still new to me and I still don't know why most folks want to get rid of their Bridge or NAT setup.  Is the eero's gateway hub speed or range being bottled neck in any of these modes?

Jun I get 950+ Mbps up and down through my Asus AC68U.  I have VLAN tagging enabled so I don’t need to use my ISP-supplied modem.  And of course I have my Eero system (6 2nd Gen eero pro’s) bridged.  If your router needs to be rebooted that often you may want to look for another router or perhaps put a cooling fan on your current router to see if that improves stability.  But of course you’re right it’s a shame Eero doesn’t support PPPoE. I don’t expect they ever will.  Life is too short to wait for them to get to it. Just expect to need a stable wired router and use Eero in bridged mode. 

a.j.singh Problem is that my fiber line plugs into a NTT ONU box which is configured by the ISP for PPPoE so I cannot replace the converter/modem.  Therefore, I need something that can be PPPoE configured such as my TP-Link router and bridge my eero to through it. My TP-Link router has been dumbed down into a switch since I turned off the antenas and other features. I'm begining to wonder if my problem is my ISP but can't say for sure since PPPoE is not supported.

As mentioned, I swapped out my family's ISP supplied modem (D-Link Wireless AC Smartbeam 1750) which was only outputting 60mps with a 2nd Gen eeros and 2 beacons. This resulted in 200-250mbps on average.  I was sold on it's drastic improvement so decided to go back into BBuy and get one for myself since they don't sell eeros out here in Japan. My shock when figured out the hard way that PPPoE was not supported. I've spent that last two days thinkering with both Bridged and NAT'ing.  Some devices connect to the beacons but get no internet access and sometimes the bridge falls apart and I need to reboot my TP-Link router.

Jun Many routers can't handle the simultaneous 1Gb throughout and so output much less (300-600 Mbps). Even though your provider is not CL, you can see descriptions of this problem if you look at forums geared to replacing CL modem for CL fiber (that's where I stumbled on the info). Many people have reported success with the wired mikrotik hex router. If you Google "CenturyLink fiber Mikrotik" you should find the relevant information. I don't have a Gb plan, but went through the same setup: fiber to ISP-supplied ONT gateway box, cat5e to Mikrotik router to handle the vlan tagging and PPPoE, to eero in bridge mode. People do report full Gb speeds with this setup (like I said, I don't have a Gb plan so can't personally confirm).

Thanks for reaching out yonathan55 , we appreciate your interest in this feature. Since PPPoE requires a fundamentally different firmware structure, there are a lot of challenges implementing it into a system like eero. That said, I'm happy to confirm that it's something we're still actively considering, and we'll be sure to announce any new developments on that front. Until then, we appreciate all the great feedback y'all have been giving us!

Kindly,
Drew, eero Community Team