Why Use PPP?

PPP provides many advantages over simply connecting to the remote machine with a modem—the obvious one being that it emulates a network. All the standard features of network connectivity are available, such as the ability to ftp files to and from the machine and allowing numerous telnet connections to it.

This is a much cheaper way of providing access to a remote system and may actually be the only way a connection can be obtained, such as in the case of a mobile user not at a fixed location. It is also a mechanism often used by home users to gain temporary or intermittent access to a network.

In our hypothetical network, we will use a separate system to provide a link to the outside world in case the main network itself fails. This link will be much slower than the original network as it relies on a modem to provide connectivity, but other than that it will be a fully functioning network.

PPP also brings automatic connection and disconnection with it, as we'll see in the section “Link Manager” on page 357.