Boot order and dependencies - getting PPP to wait

Phishfry · 2026-02-01T20:06:32+0000

balanga said:
Just wondered why people use ppp. I did many years ago, but have forgotten what for.

DSL is used for last mile coverage to area with POTS. PPPoE is simply a network protocol.
Put in DSLAM and you can cover quite a few residents that providing 'fiber to the home' might be quite expensive to run service to.
Think of DSL as a fiber extender. Wire can only run so far from the DSLAM..

If you think people using PPP have a choice I bet they do not. This is an old technology bridge.

Some recent high speed modems provide a virtual Ethernet interface instead of using a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) for the data connection because of performance reasons (PPP connection is only used between the computer and the modem, not over network). The set-up requires vendor-specific AT command extensions.

Phishfry · 2026-02-01T20:14:13+0000

The PPP protocol also found its way into Cellular Modems from the beginning..

Because PPP was such an established protocol the cellular modem designers built it in as one of the core networking protocols.
It can talk to alot of devices. In fact most every thing about Cellular Modems can be traced back to their analog conterparts including the AT command set.

Hayes AT command set - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Phishfry · 2026-02-01T20:26:20+0000

One of the problems with PPP is it is a single threaded application. This means speed is restricted by host hardware.
Often by Single-Core Clock Speed.
This can be overcome by programs like net/mpd5 which offers multiple threading PPP daemons.

balanga · 2026-02-01T20:47:46+0000

Phishfry said:
The PPP protocol also found its way into Cellular Modems from the beginning..

Because PPP was such an established protocol the cellular modem designers built it in as one of the core networking protocols.
It can talk to alot of devices. In fact most every thing about Cellular Modems can be traced back to their analog conterparts including the AT command set.

Hayes AT command set - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How I remember struggling with this command set thirty years ago. Eventually I got myself a usr robotics courier hst 14400 which provided the 'fastest imaginable connections' over POTS.

I kinda miss the noise they made on connection. Would be nice to have it as a ringtone