Abstract: Two stages of PPP negotiations are adopted for users to access a virtual private network (VPN). The access concentrator for providing PPP connections is designed to provide the two-stage connection. In the first stage, a user is verified as an authenticated VPN user, and a first network address is assigned. In the second stage, a service requested by the authenticated user is decoded for determining either the service being a VPN service or a non-VPN service. If the service is a non-VPN service, the request is processed by reference to the network address. Otherwise, a second PPP negotiation is executed between the access concentrator and a server in a VPN, and then the server of the VPN assigns the user a VPN address for providing VPN service.