Moving from Orbi RBR50 or Orbi PRO SXR80 - CenturyLink (fiber) VLAN setup question - direct to ONT

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JoeJoeJoeJoe wrote:

I currently have a Orbi RBR50 working with CenturyLink fiber.  Requires PPPoE login and VLAN 201 tagging.  My Orbi is direct connected to the CenturyLink ONT via Ethernet WAN port.

 

Questions on setting up the Orbi PRO SXR80

- PPPoE setup with user name / password is same as RBR50

- The Orbi PRO VLAN setup isn't obivous:

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Oh, my.  I sure hope this Orbi purchase qualifies for support (either the "90 day complimentary" or Insight?)  I need a stiff drink already from trying to decipher the VLAN section of the user manual: https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/SXK80/Orbi_Pro_WiFi_6_UM_EN.pdf   "Not obvious" is an understatement.

Is the goal to support IP Televisions?  If not, I think the VLAN201 business is not relevant.

I have a suspicion that 'VLAN' may have different meanings in the residential Orbi and the professional Orbi environments.

Residential Orbi VLAN was pretty clearly intended as a way to enable iptv for customers where the ISP provides IP Television using VLAN tags and the only way to attach IP Televisions was to the ethernet ports.  The key section in the Orbi user manual is that LAN ports that are assigned to a VLAN "A bridge with a port group prevents packets that are sent between the IPTV device and the router’s Internet port from being processed through the router’s Network Address Translation (NAT) service."
  Orbi users have attempted to make the original Orbi implement VLAN tagging for years and been totally stymied.  It's there only for television service.

I have no idea what the Orbi Pro VLAN scheme is intended to accomplish besides keeping groups of devices from seeing each other.  Reading the user manual only made my head hurt.

In the corporate environment, VLAN's are used to segregate network traffic while using the same switch to switch links. Switch ports are often assigned to VLANs and every packet that comes from a device on that port is tagged so that it can be sent upstream. (every packet destined to the device has the tag removed at the swtich port).  Designing VLAN groups and providing ways to get into and out of them is a major network engineering task.