Abstract: An exemplary mechanism for intelligent Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) initialization is disclosed herein. During the PPPoE discovery stage, a PPPoE client of a CPE determines the status of a connection between the CPE and an access concentrator prior to transmitting a PADI and/or PADR packet. If a physical layer connection is established, the PPPoE client can provide the packet to the physical interface for transmission to the access concentrator. If a physical layer connection is not established, the PPPoE client either periodically rechecks the status of the connection until a physical layer connection is established or the PPPoE can terminate the PPPoE discovery stage after a certain number of iterations. Additionally, prior to waiting for a PADO or PADS packet, the PPPoE client can be adapted to check the status of the connection. If a physical layer connection exists, the PPPoE client can initiate the wait for the packet.

Abstract: Various implementations for providing transparent connectivity between local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) are disclosed herein. A customer premise access equipment (CPE) can be adapted to automatically establish a physical transport layer connection with one or more remote access concentrators on a WAN when an outgoing data packet intended for a device on the WAN is received from a network device located on a LAN. Additionally, in at least one embodiment, the CPE includes a packet filter to prevent certain data packets, such as packets intended for the CPE, from initiating an automatic connection, where the packet filter can be adapted to filter the packets based on the ports associated with the packets.

Abstract: A system and method for providing a virtual Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) session between a client unable to support a PPPoE session and an access concentrator are disclosed herein. A gateway situated between the client and the access concentrator can act as a proxy PPPoE client between the client and the access concentrator, thereby allowing the client to send and receive data to/from the gateway in a protocol supported by the client, and the gateway provides this data to the access concentrator through a PPPoE session initiated and maintained by the gateway. Likewise, data from the access concentrator to the client is transmitted through the PPPoE session to the gateway, and the gateway reformats the data using a protocol supported by the client and then forwards the reformatted data to the client.