Fwiw I have also had issues with timeout connections today. My husband has not...

My symptoms were as described here - i.e. app manager hanging when trying to update and unable to download any apps from the app manager. Same symptoms where using GPRS or WLAN. My log showed a timeout from the repository. I was unable to download apps either direct from the app manager or from the website. At the same time as I was hanging my husband (who had not tried any downloads) saw a 'failed to refresh data' error on his maemo.org repository.

I tried using the google dns as suggested here - no difference.

I disabled all my repositories and one by one enabled them. Hanging started when trying to connect to maemo.org or maemo,extras.

A ping from http://www.websitepulse.com on the maemo.org repository shows the following:

On re-enabling and trying a download I eventually got this error:
'application package not found'

In Summary: I believe this to be a problem (in my case at least) with the maemo.org repository, but in any case the n900 should not hang it should return an error and/or update those repositories it can reach.

Hope this is helpful. I know my issue is not exactly the same as the thread title but this is the only thread I could find