a little investigation revealed that:

    1.  My ISP is using PPP, but not PAP.  That's makes a PIC dialup
        a little easier.

That would depend on what they're using instead.  I don't think you want to
try to do MD5 (used for CHAP) on a PIC.

    2.  My ISP doesn't support TFTP.

    Off hand, I'd guess that UDP might be doable on a PIC.  But I
    can't think of any common UDP services that would be useful for
    transfering a moderate amount of data.

TFTP uses UDP.  TFTP *is* the common UDP service for transferring a modeate
amount of data.  It has no security of any sort, so it wouldn't be very
popular for ISPs...

BillW