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(Last edited by Mhavela on 8 Jan 2011.)

Requirements

Install alpine-2.1.3 or newer (see these notes if you are unsure how to do it).

Hardware

Start by deciding which serial port to use and plug you modem there.
In below examples replace ttyS0 with the ttyS? that applies for your needs.
(/dev/ttyS0 is same as COM1 - ttyS1=COM2, ttyS2=COM3, ttyS3=COM4, ...)

Install packages

Install required packages

apk add ppp

Modules

Load some needed modules and make sure they get automatically loaded at next reboot

modprobe ppp echo "ppp" >> /etc/modules

Configure

Create configfiles

/etc/ppp/peers/serialmodem

debug
/dev/ttyS0
115200
modem
crtscts
asyncmap 0
defaultroute
noipdefault
lock
noauth
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/chat-serialmodem'

/etc/ppp/chat-serialmodem

ABORT 'BUSY'
ABORT 'ERROR'
ABORT 'NO ANSWER'
ABORT 'NO CARRIER'
ABORT 'NO DIALTONE'
ABORT 'Invalid Login'
ABORT 'Login incorrect'
REPORT 'CONNECT'
TIMEOUT '60'
'' 'ATZ'
OK 'ATDT{phonenumber}'
CONNECT ''
ogin: '{login_id}'
sword: '{your_password}'

Note: Replace above words {login_id}, {your_password} and {phonenumber} with what you received from your ISP.

See this link for more details.

Start/Stop

Start connection

pon serialmodem

Stop connection

poff serialmodem

If something goes wrong...

Check if process is running

pidof pppd

Logfile would also give you information on what happened

grep pppd /var/log/messages

Check nic information

ifconfig ppp0

pppd seems to have some pppstats function

pppstats