o2 Broadband Connection Problems

Sorry if this is a long one but can anybody explain this to me?? I’m on o2 “broadband” with XP and I can be happily surfing away at really good speeds when all of a sudden I loose all connection. The message I get is the dreaded:
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
When I refresh the page I see the following popping up on the line above the start button:

waiting for res://ieframe.dll/dnserror.htm…

It pops up then disappears in a flash (I had to click on refresh a few times to actually make a note of the message!!). I can be off-line from any where between 5 minutes and a matter of hours (sometimes all day).

Can anybody suggest anything as it’s driving me crazy. Now I do know it’s not just me as I did a little test with my dad (PC with Vista) and he also has the o2 broadband and we were both on-line at the same time and his connection dropped at the same time as me with the same error message as above (him on his PC and me on my laptop).

The connection to the modem is showing connected at 7.2Mbps (which I know is really only the connection to the modem itself) which makes it all the more frustrating. I have done all the usual uninstall/re-install, tried the different USB connections and it’s still the same.

This has been going on for the best part of the last 6 weeks or so on a daily basis. Is o2 having problems with their DNS???

I’m actually “trying to do an on-line course at the moment which is near impossible as I keep losing the connection. By the way this is the only “broadband” option I have as I cannot get DSL (split line eircom don’t wanna know)/Fixed Wireless (no LOS)/Cable (not where you are hun) and I’m not even gonna think about satellite, so I’m buggered.

Has any other o2’ers had the same problem?? Or, can anybody please help????
Thanks
bijou