I get a good connection so in terminal I can ping an IP address but not a hostname....hmmm
Maybe my DNS is broken?

I then edit /etc/resolv.conf

root@toppix:/home/rob# cat /etc/resolv.conf
search nccw.net
nameserver 205.158.183.100 205.158.183.102
# Insert nameservers here
# nameserver 127.0.0.1
root@toppix:/home/rob#

now everything works.