Widow,

That's not entirely true about PPPoE - at least not in all cases. My friend had Earthlink 1.5/128 service and it worked very well for him.

Also, my COVAD DSL uses PPPoE but the login/pw is stored in my Zyxel Prestige Modem/Router/Switch/Hub and it is "always" on and I have a static IP. My last ISP, Fast.net (which is a COVAD partner) did not have any PPPoE and I was only 1,300 feet from the CO. I'm now a little under 8,000 feet from the same CO and my pings times and speed tests are better with COVAD than they were with Fast.net. =) Might have had something to do with the telco lines (I had a separate data line with Fast.net, no linesharing) but I've had no problems with streaming media, etc.

I had Verizon DSL for a very short time (less than 30 day trial) about 2 1/2 years ago and I did have to login everytime I started my computer and that sucked. But then again... the DSL was down 28 our of the first 30 days so that was the least of the problem.