Sky BB and some phones are off for a lot of exchanges in
Liverpool and Manchester. I've been off since late last
night. Writing this on my son's PC as he is on BT.

Sky say they have identified the fault & they are working
to fix it.

Just back on 16:35

Not before time! Thats a hell of a long time to be off. Its only inconvenienced me a bit, but if youve got a business depending on Sky communications it must have been a nightmare. Cant be funny for those selling on Ebay , a real loss of last minute bids will mean lots of items being sold for the original starting price !! maybe even 99p

internet & phone bothjust come back on

I spent nearly a fiver on my mobile to be told the same thing

Would be nice to get a 99p bargain but doesn't happen that often. You shouldn't really start bids at 99p if your not prepared to let it go for that price. The only benefit I see is that it will throw your auction near the top of the list if someone does a search by lowest price first.
I play a bit of a game occasionally on ebay by just throwing on my highest bid from the start --if I win great if I don't ive helped push the price up for the seller--win win.

Funny take on it here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/17/north_sky_mega_broadband_outage/

Nice to know we live in the 'badlands surrounding Manchester and Liverpool'