Point-to-Point Overview and Technical Specifications

PacketFabric’s point-to-point service is a dedicated Ethernet Private Line (EPL).

Commonly referred to as “pseudowire,” EPL is a traditional point-to-point Ethernet virtual connection between physical interfaces.

Single point to single point

The most obvious difference between a point-to-point connection and a virtual circuit is that point-to-point connections are dedicated.

This means that while a PacketFabric access port can have up to 4,000 virtual circuits, a point-to-point interface will only support one EPL connection.

Pricing

Point-to-point connectivity is our most economical service and the closest thing to a ‘bundled’ product that we offer. Each point-to-point connection includes two access ports and dedicated data transfer costs.

For a complete price list, see Point-to-Point Networking.

Technical notes and constraints

  • Header row

    • Feature
    • Description

  • Row 1

    • Vendor restrictions
    • None. Point-to-point connections are vendor-agnostic.

  • Row 2

    • Point-to-point connections per port
    • One

  • Row 2

    • Rate limiting
    • Not supported

  • Row 2

    • Supported protocols
      • BFD
      • ELMI
      • GARP/GMRP
      • Jumbo frames (up to 9096)
      • LACP (tunneled)
      • Link OAM
      • MacSec
      • MPLS multicast
      • MPLS unicast
      • Multicast
      • PNAC 802.1X
      • Provider bridge group access
      • Q-in-Q
      • Spanning trees

  • Row 2

    • Unsupported protocols
      • LLDP
      • Pause frames

Ethernet specifications

  • Header
    • Service
    • Service Features
  • Row
    • Ethernet Private Line (EPL)
    • Duplex support:
      Tag protocol IDs: 0x88a8, 0x8100, 0x9100
  • Row
    • Supported Ethernet Layer 2 control protocols (L2CP) destination MAC addresses:
      • LACP/LAMP- 01:80:C2:00:00:02
      • Link OAM - 01:80:C2:00:00:02
      • ESMC - 01:80:C2:00:00:02
      • 802.1X-01:80:C2:00:00:03
      • E-LMI - 01:80:C2:00:00:07
      • Provider Bridge Group Address - 01:80:C2:00:00:08
      • Provider Bridge MVRP Address - 01:80:C2:00:00:0D
      • LLDP - 01:80:C2:00:00:0E
      • PTP Peer Delay - 01:80:C2:00:00:0E
  • Row
    • VLAN support:
      VLANs 1-4094 and untagged
  • Row
    • Quality of Service marking:
      • Support preservation of IP precedence/DSCP bits: Yes
      • Support preservation of 802.1p bits: Yes
  • Row
    • MAC addresses per endpoint:
      Unlimited
  • Row
    • Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, Multicast (BUM) traffic support:
      All BUM traffic is transported end-to-end
  • Row
    • Dedicated bandwidth available UNI-to-UNI:
      Yes
  • Row
    • Core/Backbone service resilience:
      EPL service is protected with Node+Link Fast Reroute technology, ensuring sub-50ms service restoration.

Updated on 14 Sep 2020