While on dial-up, I passed the modem cable thru a surge supressor. Dunno whether it actually worked, but never got blindsided -- and here in NC we get tons of lightening.
Sooo ... should I pass the DSL cable (twixt the wall and the modem) thru a surge supressor, or will that mess up the DSL signals??
All you can do is try it and see. Some units will pass it ok, others will not. Try downloading a big file, say Google Earth before and after and make sure if it does work, it's no cutting your speed in half.
I'm in NC also and deal with grounding a LOT with the businesses I work with.
The single best thing you can do that's practical is to make sure your phone and power (and cable) come into your house near each other and that the phone demarc is grounded to the same earth ground as your power. NOT to a wire ground on one of your power runs. This ties your phones and electrical service to the same "ground stake" and any nearby lightning generated voltage spikes will come into your house in step and likely not bother you. Like two boats riding a big wave. If they are close and connected they go up and down the wave together and are never very far apart vertically.
Now lightning hitting your power pole or roof, well all bets are off.
The best comments I heard on this was the only perfect lightning protection is the 12" of air space between the power and other cables and the jacks on the wall when the cables are unplugged and lying on the floor. :)
As DLR mentioned, try it and see what happens.
I tried running my DSL modem through a higher end APC surge protector (that didn't say anything about DSL) and it killed the signal to my DSL modem. Switched to an APC Back-UPS that did say it would work with DSL, and I didn't see any attenuation or degradation of my DSL line.
Personally I use a surge protector - in fact, I'm hearing rumblings of thunder again here in St. Paul, MN.
Bob.
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