Hi Jo (from SK here)
Nice job of the detailed info--sorry to hear of your connection problems. Trying to connect with 8.6 and a modem can be very difficult at the best of times. Still, looks like your setup is good since it worked before.

I just looked over my connections, and see some from ed, wp and vn.shawcable.net (Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver maybe?). So, I'd guess Shaw is good, but it might be worth calling them to make sure you're clear to connect to the gnutella network on port 6346.

Unless you added a firewall, there's not one built into 8.6, so you should be OK there.

The LW team has added some code to help with connections, but that won't be released for a few days. If you want to try connecting in the meantime, you could try going to the Connections Pane and entering the IPort of a friend running as an Ultrapeer. That can be tricky if the friend already has all the slots filled, but might work if the timing is right.

If not, message me and maybe I can send you some of those IP's.