PPPoE at a Telephone Company

The telephone company is the middle layer of the PPPoE scenario. The telephone company splits the signal that is received over the phone line by using a device that is called a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM). The DSLAM breaks out the signals onto separate wires, analog wires for telephone service, and digital wires for PPPoE. From the DSLAM, the digital wires extend the tunnel over an ATM data network to the ISP.