MY connection hassles over the last month have been becoz of my ISP - which has now started employing something called packet shaping - to figure what are normal browsing patterns, which it allows and what are p2p apps using bandwidth, which it disallows.
the block is not complete, so occasionally i do manage to connect to limewire, though more often not.
changing firewall settings, changing port nos, deleting the .limewire preferences file, uninstalling/re-installing LW does not help.
i use pacenet, in mumbai - and i don't have the option of changing my ISP, becoz there aren't any others in my area.
people who have been having trouble with connecting to limewire with the port test for limewire coming as page loading failed - please check the terms of use of your ISP. chances are, it has something to say about monitoring bandwidth access and limiting the same in case of excess use. this is what my ISP says -
this is just cheating, simple and pure. who defines what is excess or average or expected? how can they block apps just like that - with not a word about it in the user agreement? of course - i'm ranting quite a bit here, but then i'm SO mad at them just now... calling their helplines is obviously useless, they just deny blocking anything.

so far, the only way i can connect with limewire is to ensure that limewire tries to connect to the network at the same moment as i get my connexion to the net - ie when i startup my ISP dialer. in the first few seconds i guess the ports are not monitored or whatever, but i can connect to limewire in these few seconds, regardless of the port i use.

nobody's gonna take these guys to court, we take an avg of 2yrs for homicide to come up for trial here, consumer cases languish for years and years...the only way out is to beat them at their system, so if anyone knows how to get around this, please please help...

Do you not have Dishnet or Hathway, in2cable or India Internet, Satyam or Sygma?... perhaps they have been swallowed up by pacenet.

I did notice this which might help. No idea what it is, and I haven't seen it mentioned in the forums. http://www.cfos.de/speed/cfosspeed_e.htm Also they are looking for more information, and seem to have nothing on India or Gnutella.

I have heard that shaping is not so stringent after about 7pm. Have you seen any evidence of this.

I notice your isp has recieved a number of compaints mainly from game players.

Well.... I had a spare few moments and thought I'd Google a bit ... I imagine you have, but something might help ..

Also there is this thread, in case you missed it. http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...hlight=shaping

Another thought .. can you get registered as a business user ... This would, I assume entitle you to more bandwidth.

I hope you find a solution and doubt if I've been much help ... but Good luck

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thanx for the research dude...but it doesn't seem to be helping yet. as for the other thread, i've already looked on it and posted earlier about the same problem too.
i've been doing my own bit of reading, and a few reports suggest that skype manages to get around packet shaping somehow...i'm not a software programming person really [hard to be one when you're a doctor ] so i'm not sure what packet encryption etc exactly is and how it mite be implemented in relevance to p2p apps.
as for other ISPs yeah they are there, but not in my local area yet. the broadband market's still new here, and players are still establishing themselves...and though my ISP has been cursed a lot by other ppl using pacenet on my local forums, but no one there has a real solution either.
i'm gonna try the after 7pm thing, lets see if it helps...
also, i checked out the cfos link, its some software claiming to get around packet shaping. now if only LW developers would integrate that sorta technology[if it works, that is] in their next LW version then life would be great wouldn't it?