Identifying and forwarding traffic to/from Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplex (DSLAM) devices and feature servers without ambiguity includes a user-facing provider edge (u-PE) device that receives a customer frame from a DSLAM device, the customer frame of a first format including a first virtual local area network (VLAN) tag of a first bit length. The first VLAN tag identifies a DSL subscriber. The customer frame is re-formatted by the u-PE device such that the first VLAN tag is mapped to a second VLAN tag of a second bit length greater than the first bit length, the second VLAN tag identifying a service instance of the Ethernet access network. The u-PE device encapsulating the customer frame inside a provider frame, with a provider source Media Access Control (MAC) address represents a MAC address associated with the DSLAM, and a provider destination MAC address represents a MAC address of a destination device.