Bell Atlantic sent me an installation kit with a modem and several filters to split the digital signals from the analog data from voice. It was surprisingly simple to get a single computer onto the Internet. I plugged in the DSL modem to wall current and to a phone line. I connected the computer s standard network interface card to the modem, installed a little software and watched all the lights turn green. PPPoE acts a lot like a dial-up connection without the dialing delay.
Connection is almost immediate.
Bell Atlantic and other providers are rapidly adopting PPPoE because the connection at the telco s end acts just like dial-up, too. Bell Atlantic cautioned that DSL wouldn t work until after 6 p.m. on the first day of service, and technical support would close down at 8 p.m. Next I had to set up the account, which was where I hit a glitch. Bell Atlantic s software included a special version of the Netscape Navigator browser to assist in account setup. But the registration server appeared to be down.