Belkin router is telling fibs

[#1]

Yesterday my broadband connection went down, as did my neighbour's who is with BT. We both rang upand were told it's a wide area fault. This morning the router still has the ADSL light flashing orange and the internet light unlit. I tried resetting it but no good. I've also tried a spare router of the same type.
However, clicking on the connection icon in the taskbar enabled me to enter my plusnet username and password and I'm back online on the main machine but my laptop won't connect. However the router hasn't changed, telling me I have no connection. This has seemed to create another connection according to the network and sharing center in windows. So what's up? I've not seen this one before. I assume I've done something wrong but what?

[#2]

I'm assuming your laptop connects to the network wirelessly?  If so you could have changed the wireless password back to a default one inadvertently and might not be matching with what's entered/what you're entering into your laptop in order to connect.

[#3]

There's no password on the router. I live out in the sticks and there are no neighbours or roads near enough to connect to it. The laptop connects to the router ok, the wireless light on the router lights up, but on the laptop it says there is no internet connection.
Something not right, I can't understand how I can get online on the pc yet the router ADSL light is still flashing orange. Everything was fine and nothing has been changed except the connection going down yesterday for most of the day.
If I go to the Belkin router setup it says no internet connection yet I'm typing this!

[#4]

An update. I've rung up again and it appears there has been some malicious damage at the local exchange which may well be causing problems. Fingers crossed it'll be ok when it's fixed.

[#5]

I can see there's an estimated clear time of 16:22 so hopefully that should be resolved this afternoon. There is a possibility that another estimated clear time might be given at that point but I'll do my be st to check for you around that time.

EDIT: I've checked and can see that you're now connected again. Let me know if you have any more issues.

[#6]

I've been connected all day but the router says I'm not and the laptop won't connect. I can only connect by using a new connection and putting in the username and password. My old named connection seems to have lost the name. Something went wrong when the network went down yesterday. I've wasted so much time on this, it's immenesly frustrating.

[#7]

TBH I think you're unlucky enough to have been looking at two problems here.
As you can see for the graph there has been some long periods with out a connection altogether (due to the problem at the exhange which as since been fixed). However during the time it's been working fine you've reported issues with your laptop not being able to connect and that would suggest a separate issue which sounds like it's related to the laptop in some way. I'd try manually specifying DNS on your laptop as the next step. If you've had enough for today then give me a nudge tomorrow or whenever's convenient and I'll make sure we help you through that as best we can.
<img src="http://ccgi.psmith12.plus.com/visradius/generated/image13552459051122.png"/>

[#8]

The problem is the router is not connecting properly. ADSL light still flashing. Everything was fine until the outage.
Edited to add:
Fixed! Rang up again and it's sorted. Thanks for your help folks.