Guys,

thanks for the rapid and helpful responses.  Just so you know, I've
re-built pppd with the patch Charles sent (using 4 instead of
CILEN_LONG) and with -DDEBUGLCP.  

The bad news is that in the last 24 hours, I've not been able to get
through to the SunOS machine :-( as soon as I have managed to test the
above suggestions I'll report back.

Thanks again for your help.

--sjg