Our telephone wires were hit by lightning whilst I was down in Wales on my first solo tour 2 summers back. My OH was down visiting me and hadn't unplugged the laptop which I normally did when a storm was due. It killed our laptop, router, phone, wall socket and something else I have forgotten about now. Further up the lane someone's master socket was literally blown off the wall and various other houses had other issues as well as all of us losing our phone lines and broadband. It took about 6 months to completely rewire the lane (some of its underground, some of it through trees etc) but we finally have new telephone cables for the entire lane. The upshot is that our broadband has gone from an intermittent 2Mps to a fantastic and stable 5Mps! The wonders of lightning, something complaint after complaint failed to achieve!