pppoe grinds to a halt

[Donn]

Given the OP, here are two sections from the pppd man page. Can anyone help me 
grok them?

demand 
 Initiate the link only on demand, i.e. when data traffic is present. With 
this option, the remote IP address must be specified by the user on the 
command line or in an options file. Pppd will initially configure the 
interface and enable it for IP traffic without connecting to the peer. When 
traffic is available, pppd will connect to the peer and perform negotiation, 
authentication, etc. When this is completed, pppd will commence passing data 
packets (i.e., IP packets) across the link. 
 The demand option implies the persist option. If this behaviour is not 
desired, use the nopersist option after the demand option. The idle and 
holdoff options are also useful in conjunction with the demand option.

idle n 
 Specifies that pppd should disconnect if the link is idle for n seconds. The 
link is idle when no data packets (i.e. IP packets) are being sent or 
received. Note: it is not advisable to use this option with the persist 
option without the demand option. If the active-filter option is given, data 
packets which are rejected by the specified activity filter also count as the 
link being idle.

It sounds like I need persist (to reconnect). Then I need idle (to force the 
link down, so that it can reconnect) - but I can't figure that demand option 
out. For a start I don't know the remote IP (it gets found by pppoe magic).

/d