Pinging external IP's from the router diagnostics page works ok.
Pinging from the cmd returns could not find host errors (i think we tried pinging a site name rather than an ip address there).
Have also tried in the cmd: telnet google.com 80
and apparently (is it a vista thing?) " 'telnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. "
DNS is set up on the router and has been assigned to the network adaptor ok (in this case it is wireless, but using wired does not act any different).
Rebuilding the TCP/IP stack (with netsh int ip reset c:\tcpiprebuild.log ) also doesn't help, it said everything was ok, and i couldn't find the logfile afterwards, so i don't think it errored.
The problem is apparent on both a Vista desktop and an XP laptop (an EEE PC to be exact

Short of calling the ISP i'm lost for ideas. Anyone with some better understanding of networking have an idea as to what is going on?
Dan