internet not automatically starting

[#1]

following the outage on Friday last (would have helped if users were notified) my internet connection is not automatically being made
I have to go through a long rigmarole of going to the Thomson Gateway entering userid/password and account userid/password and manually starting the internet (have to say this process is not user friendly at all)
this happens every time I turn the computer off and back on again.
I also notice the date of the authentication rejection is 01/01/2000 ?
what can I do to correct this and why is it happening?
thank you for any help you can give me.

[#2]

The "odd" date is the default value after a router power down/up sequence. It then uses an internet time server to set the date and time - but cannot do this until the session has authenticated. I don't use the 582n, so I'll leave the corrective action to someone who knows whether this is a generic problem or not (though I do have a 585 which would not store the details until I went through a factory reset and entered all my configuration mods again).

edit: minor changes!

[#3]

thank you
the date anomoly is explained
now how do I get the internet to start automatically as it used to before Friday ?
just to add - the internet light on the router does not flash or go to green when I power up the computer and router
if it was showing red I would know what the problem was - it is just un-lit. .