dude, i had almost the same problem, CALL your ISP and make complaints about that, make sure of having details abut your contract, type of connection, and whatever they could ask for, and then haer waht they got to say.
I had the same problem (slow download speed), and i made complaints, so they dindn't give me the pass for portforwarding, but remotly, they they activated something like DMZ, or anything like it, they sayd, with that activated, the router's firewall will be de-activated, and al traffic will port-forwarded to my pc's static IP....
Maybe asking them for that will solve the problem, and you to de-activate the protection on those ports.
BTW: my ISP makes P2P traffic shapping, but only for giving users time for considering waht they download

ok thx for the advice, i might try to get someone from atlantic broadband to come to my house and look at my internet connection or whatever, im not sure its setup right lol

oh ya I tried bearshare and had the same problem with connecting :(

The fact no p2p programs have ever worked for you really does sound suspicious.

i know, but they worked fine before i got this new computer, i had the same setup on my old one, only reason i got a new one was because of a power surge or something it just fried lots of peoples electronics where i live, including ym old computer tower, im still able to use the speakers and monitor off the old one, just not the tower

Aha ... so it has actually worked at your place before. Just not the same computer. Are you using the same modem/router as earlier? Are you able to connect via dial up at all? I think I asked that much earlier on. Some isp's will allow you to connect via dial up in case their dsl services have problems, etc. Mine does. Come to think of it you couldn't configure the dial up could you. I'm not windows savvy enough to help in that area.

well on my old computer when i downloaded limewire i was using earthlink dialup, then switched to atlantic boradband cable a few months later after it was already installed, umm on this computer i got free aol dialup for 3 months, I tried that to see if i could connect and i could, but it made my whole computer that slow even though i had cable internet hooked up lol (probably a mistake on my part setting up the options)

yes im using the same modem as my old computer (i think). im not sure what a modem is lol, but i think its this smallblack box that my cable wire and ethernet cables plug into, its a SURFboard one, but yeah its the same one i used on my old computer

I still think that Atlantic are blocking you somehow, even though your mate connects fine, is he by chance on a different plan than you...

I had a Motorola surfboard cable modem at my old house and it didn't have a Nat firewall...

Did you buy a brand new computer or a second hand one ??

brand new