And that is, never ever give in to your whining daughter and let her play the Wii during a the onset of a massive thunder storm.
The result of my not doing that, coupled with the direct lightening strike on our house was my modem being fried beyond repair.
The funny thing is, I'm almost dead certain that I had removed the power cord from the base of the modem, although I don't remember if I removed the phone line.
The power supply is also connected to a surge protector along with everything else and it's the only thing that fried, so I wonder if the surge went through the phone line. I'll never know though as the modem showed no signs of damage on the outside and I wasn't in the room when it happened.
My wife reports hearing an electrical spark or sommat and then the sound of music from near the modem. Which also confuses the hell out of me and I'm wondering if she just imagined the music.
Still, I managed to find a replacement modem on Amazon but as of this morning it hadn't shipped, so I then went round to several NTT centers (national phone provider here -- and the only people who stock this modem -- asides from Amazon).
The eventually replaced my dead modem free of charge but not until a several minutes after Amazon finally shipped the modem I ordered from them =S
Oh well, that'll teach me to live in the worst area in Japan for thunder storms =)

Sell your second modem on Yahoo Auctions or something. I'm sure there's a massive market out there for modems.

that is just the ghost/wraith of your old dead modem.
Let me come or better yet i will send a minion over to pick up your old dead modem.
I am sure i could find a use for a ghost/wraith modem.

Phone/Ethernet surges are far less common but not impossible; I'd suggest investing in a good power strip (Belkin, if you have that brand over there) with phone/Ethernet sockets and run the router through that (the phone models are cheaper than the Ethernet ones, but I don't know if there is a downside to that). Belkin's power strips include a lifetime warranty for whenever the surge component dies as well as cover for equipment damaged if a surge manages to get through.

Surge protectors won't do squat against a direct lightning strike. They're designed to resist surges from power plants etc. Not lightning. Against that it would be about as effective as fitting shock resistant bumpers to the front of passenger aircraft. The only way to be sure is to unplug everything.
It's not impossible that the strike occurred through the phone line, but I've not heard of that happening before.

You can recruit undead footmen through the Wraithnet?

Must be like a necromancer's A.I.M.

We had that happening in Belgium. everything connected to the phone line (alarm, phones, DSL modem, and indirectly computers) were fried by lightning while we were on vacation. Luckily the computers worked well enough afterwards that only new NICs needed to be bought.

Yes, it is entirely possible. That's why it is not advisable to speak on a corded phone during a thunderstorm. Even if the phone has no auxiliary power supply using only the phone line it is very likely to strike you trough the receptor if a lightning strikes the line.
I suppose this is a lot less likely to happen for underground telephony networks in urban areas.

Well that's lucky. Well. Kinda. Not being struck by lightning at all would have been luckier.

I was specifically meaning in regards to phone/Ethernet surge protection, which is how banasama thinks the damage must have occurred. Because these lines aren't designed to carry even mains-level voltages you are theoretically more likely to experience critical failure further up the chain of devices (in banasama's case, frying the router rather than making it as far as the NIC--although that can still happen); having a surge protector for it adds another step in the failure chain, especially since it's actually meant to die when it gets hit (which wasn't intentional with the router).
Having a good-quality surge protector will do a good job against other types of surges in general, and the line protection is desirable for the rare occasion you get a surge through there. There's little price difference between a surge protector with phone protection and one without.
Some companies sell dedicated Ethernet surge protection boxes, but their usefulness is questionable; the only true surge protection for direct strikes is some sort of grounded solution, but of course that's not really feasible for most people. :)

I wasn't trying to debunk your point. Surge protection is vital for any valuable electrical equipment. It's just that bansama mentioned surge protection in the opening post.

Most people don't have phone/Ethernet surge protection, which was why I was suggesting it as a possibility. I also somehow overlooked the detail of it being a direct strike.

Well, I don't, to be honest. But it's a bit more difficult given that it's from a cable modem.

Direct strike . . nothing can guarantee protection. I live in the "flat lands" now where we have rolling thunder / lightning almost daily. My APC unit has surge protection for both phone and Ethernet connections. I have been lucky I guess . . . no damage from storms . . . ever . . =)
I also have a $40 APC surge protection unit on my wide screen / stereo equipment that has surge protection for cable . . . from the wall to surge protector to TV . . . so far it has worked since I unplug none of the equipment.
Well, on checking, the unit is only $32 now . . . =)