These days, most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) around the world (such as TIM and Fastweb in Italy) offer broadband Internet subscriptions via PPPoE. PPPoE is the acronym for Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet and is the protocol used by ADSL internet connections .
Actually PPPoE is not the only protocol, but it is more stable than PPPoA, which stands for Point-to-Point Protocol over ATM .
When creating an internet connection on a P C, in the vast majority of cases it is necessary to set up a PPPoE connection with a manual procedure on the PC if the connection is made with a cable connected to the modem or by configuring the name and password on the wifi router.
What is PPPoE
PPPoE is a network protocol which derives from an older protocol called PPP which stands for Point-to-Point Protocol.
This type of protocol, Point-to-Point, is the one that allowed communication between two computers, using a serial interface and was very popular before the 2000s, when there were dial-up Internet connections.
At that time, the 56K modem connected to the telephone line had to be used to connect a computer to the internet to establish a connection between the PC and the server of the telephone company.
The problem with the old dial-up connections that used the PPP protocol was, in addition to the slowness, that only one PC could be connected to the internet.
With the aim of simultaneously connecting more than one computer to the Internet, PPPoE was born, capable of encapsulating data frames on Ethernet networks, to allow a single server connection to be divided between multiple clients, via an Ethernet cable .
Basically, you can imagine the dial-up PPP as a one-to-one phone call between me and my boss while the PPPoE is a phone call between the boss me and my other colleagues together.
PPPoE is a network protocol that also offers essential networking features such as authentication, encryption and data compression .
For all these features, PPPoE is one of the most used means of providing Internet access and is also used by all Italian providers that can sell internet access subscriptions protected by authentication and encryption.
Thanks to PPPoE, providers such as Telecom, Fastweb and Infostrada can manage subscriber connections by imposing bandwidth limits or filtering network traffic or even filtering Internet traffic.
We finally get to the important point of this article saying that, when you activate a new subscription to connect to the internet, even if it is not expressly indicated, you go to create a PPPoE connection (this does not apply to everyone, for example Tiscali uses PPPoA and Fastweb has a different connection system).
When the Internet provider uses a PPPoE protocol, an ethernet cable connection must be installed in the home and a user name and password must be assigned.
Most of the time, they are also asked to buy or rent a modem router.
If there is a modem-router, this manages the PPPoE connection and we have seen in another article how to configure the router with TIM, Fastweb and other providers .
Most routers automatically configure themselves to work with the PPPoE protocol, although each of them has its own user interface and may have options called differently.
If there is no modem and you are connected directly to the provider via ethernet cable (for some wireless VPN services without Telecom line it works like this), you can attach the cable directly to the PC and create a new PPPoE connection.
To create a PPPoE connection on Windows open the Control Panel looking for it from the Start menu, open the Network Connection Center and press on Configure new network connection .
In the first screen select internet connection and then choose Broadband PPPoE .
Enter the name and password that the provider gave us to connect to the internet and give the connection the name.
You can also activate the option to allow the use of the connection to other users to make the internet work also to other users of the computer.
If everything went well, the PC will be connected to the internet, otherwise you need to call the customer service of our ISP, ie who we pay for the internet.
As seen in another article, you can also make sure that the PC automatically connects to the PPPoE when it is turned on.
Keep in mind that even in this type of configuration you can put a router between the ethernet cable and our PC, to activate a Wifi connection and to connect multiple PCs.
In this case the PPPoE network access settings is made on the router.
READ ALSO: How to solve internet connection problems
