Given that you've got a 2.5mbps connection speed, excellent or turbo LW connection, no firewall then I don't know what else it could really be.

Did you try the optimising tips? What do you have your LW speed set at (cable/dsl, T1, T3)?

Lots of ISPs do use traffic shaping when it comes to p2p, they justify it by saying that people who use p2p are hogging bandwidth. Do you know anyone else who uses ihug & LW? If so, do they get a decent download speed?

Hehe, most of my friends (much like me), are broadband noobs. Laugh at us - we are in New Zealand, where broadband is pretty much like cavemen seeing cars for the first time lol.

Anyhow, after 6 minutes of waiting, a 'customer representative' told me it must be because of limewire itself - but I don't get it - limewire was just fine last month, and it hasnt been touched until yesterday???

I can't say for sure what your ISP are doing. But when download speed drops so dramatically ( & there's nothing obviously wrong with your LW - connection's good & you're not firewalled) it is often because of the ISP shaping bandwidth.

You haven't changed any hardware, have you? Has anything changed since LW was working well? Anything at all? What version of Java & LW are you using (in LW if you go help > about LW, it will tell you)? Have you updated to a new version of LW recently?