Hmm, seems like a trend with this happening to Comcast customers. My guess is that a conflict occured last night between POL and certain ISPs, but it isn't permanent. Somehow, one can fix the problem, I read about other Comcast customers having a problem who have had some success in fixing it.
Just a few minutes ago, I somehow fixed it. Don't ask me how, I was doing mostly the same crap I had done earlier that didn't work. Here's what I was doing at the time:
I became desperate and started messing around with Ipconfig commands. I had already tried /flushdns and /release and /renew, etc., and that didn't work. Then I did /registerdns and /renew and I messed something up... I couldn't get ANY internet access, let alone POL. So I went back to resetting the router, modem, and restarting the PC. I tried messing with ipconfig again, this time just /release and /flushdns (/renew and /registerdns gave me problems before). Then I re-configured my router (I have to use a static IP provided by my ISP, so it doesn't work unless I've done so). At this time I also changed the LAN settings to lease IP addresses for only a half hour and I changed the range of IP addresses available (I was frustrated that the PC was picking up the same IP even after /release and /renew and all that).
Do all of you use a static IP? That is, is your IP address now the same as it was before this started happening last night? In the midst of all my tinkering, I managed to get the router to hand me a new IP for this computer and the other computer also grabbed a new IP after we brought it back from next door. Like I said, my ISP makes me use a static IP for internet access so directly connecting to it meant I couldn't change it. However when hooked up to the router each PC receives a different IP.
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but the IP address might have to do with it if it's still the same as it was when the problem happened last night. That or something I did when I messed around with ipconfig solved it by some fluke... I'm no ace when it comes to networking but I'm very persistant at troubleshooting.
It's not your fault or your ISP's fault, which is what some SE techs will guess when you talk to them about it. None of us changed our settings, and there's no way that a select handful of ISPs all decided to change something simultaneously... but nothing changing might be what was and still is causing POL to block a lot of us from getting in.
So if you're adventurous and wanna give what I did a try (PC users only, sorry I can't begin to guess how to fix a PS2 connection problem)...
Start >> Run...
Type in: cmd
This'll bring up a dos emulator. Type: ipconfig /?
That shows you the various commands you can punch in and mess with, i.e. ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew, etc.
/flushdns alone didn't work for me earlier. I really don't know what DID work. But if you're desperate like I was, it's worth a shot.