I thought i'd let you all know the manchester outage seems to relate to the time that i was having troubles too, i'm in nelson lancashire, 40 miles from manchester, and from roughly 5pm to midnight on the 26th i could not get a connection with broadband. My phone was working, but as others have said ntl had no information whats so ever. the strange thing is, my freind, could connect and she is only the other side of town... weird
Janis