Enhanced ppp protocol by qos capability over ethernet

A network arrangement involving three networks - one between one or more user-hosts and an access server, one between the access server and one or more access routers associated with one or more ISPs and a third, which may be the Internet, accessible via the routers and in which the first network is a shared-media network and/or information packets are multiplexed over one or more tunnels in the second network - employs PPP as an access-network protocol and as a service-access protocol between the hosts and the access routers, and equips the PPP access-network protocol with an independent QoS capability. The first network may be an Ethernet running under PPPoE protocol, or it may run under ATM linking to an L2TP Access Concentrator.