ADSL connection OK but no internet

[IvorETower]

Sometime between about 11pm Friday and 2pm Saturday my internet connection (broadband) died although the ADSL light on the wireless modem-router was still on, and the wireless network was working OK. Phone company and ISP both denied that they had any problems or issues. Mysteriously around 1pm on Sunday everything worked again although a short while ago the internet connection dropped out again for about 5 minutes.
Anyone have any ideas for establishing if the ISP or phone line company is at fault, or is there a weird intrermittent fault with the modem-router?

[beejaybee]

Next time you get a dropout try pinging the other end of your ADSL connection ... if you don't have a IP address then you can blame the connection. If that works try a different address but expressed numerically. One that you know is almost always up. In my experience the problem is often a failure of the server software belonging to the ISP, in particular the domain name server.

Nobody will ever believe that they have a problem, they always blame the next link in the chain. But if you can show consistent evidence of what's working & what isn't the blame is hard to avoid.

[LargeFormat]

Drop outs do happen from time to time. I had one a while back and eventually phoned my ISP who wasn't aware of any problem. After a bit of a hunt he came back to tell me that there was a fault in the exchange. I was the first to report it and 29,000 people were without a connection! Typical, we had all been sitting around thinking someone else had dealt with it.

[IvorETower]

I've had an e-mail from my ISP this morning (just after 11:00am) to say that they were only recently advised by BT of a fault that affected numerous ISP's, and that the fault was only fully cleared early Monday morning.... just in case anyone else has been experiencing problems