Open Beta has started...

[Naaman]

and that means servers are up 24\7 (apart from crashes etc...)

Here for details

[JohnO]

Link says...

We cannot proceed. 
 
Access Denied.
 
 

[Zombieman]

Suspect boards still protected allowing beta members only...

P.S. Well spotted that (Naa)man

Apart from the fact right this minute it's stuck loading a door mission    I'm trying a corrupter.... AR/Dark to be precise, and it's an interesting combination alternately shooting things and doing the "heal thyself" bit...

[Naaman]

heh - Corruptors Rock 

and for JohnO, here's the announcement verbatim...

Expanded Server Hours

Attention Villains!

We will activate the beta server tonight at the usual time (6pm Central, 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern). However, instead of shutting it down after three hours, we will leave it up indefinitely.

So, for those of you who have been wondering when we will move to 24/7 access, the day has arrived! Keep in mind that this is still beta, however, so there will be times when we need to bring things down temporarily to apply patches or to perform maintenance. Otherwise, our goal is to have the server available as much as possible until the end of beta.

Yours in villainy,
Alexa

And there's an announcement on the CoH forums about the Pre-order invites going out Here