Kent-based, RedHotAnt, has not been squished despite concerns from users that they hadn't heard a peep from the ISP for the last couple of days.

Reports from frustrated users suggested that the whole service - including RedHotAnt's Web site, email service and technical support - had gone belly up.

Paul Saville of RedHotAnt admitted: "There is a problem. Our link to the Net was damaged and we had to move all our servers.

"All are up and running now except one - and that's the one with our site on it," he said.

He said the service would be up and running again as soon as possible.

Saville blamed the outage on storms which hit London on Tuesday night. He suggested a lightning strike might have been responsible for the damage, although he couldn't be certain.

He said it was out of the hands RedHotAnt and that it was down to the ISP's third party supplier, MCI Worldcom.

No one form MCI Worldcom was available for comment by press time. However, a spokesman for the Met Office confirmed there was some thundery activity reported around northwest London at around 11.00am on Tuesday. ®