The Official Need for Speed Underground Website (thanks Frans) has word that the Official Need for Speed Underground servers will be shut down shortly after the beginning of the new year:

Servers for NFS Underground will no longer be in service as of January 13, 2006. You may continue to play the game up until the closure date, although certain community programs may begin to close down prior to that date. Please be advised that this does not affect PC peer-peer (IP-IP) play that may be a feature of certain games.

All of us at EA would like to thank you for participating in such a special online community and hope that your enthusiasm for these games will continue on beyond this game experience with some of our updated titles.

If you have further questions about your account or the shut down of the EA Online service, please visit http://eatech.custhelp.com