Try downloading a file from here & see what speed you get
http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml
(these files should download pretty quickly!)

Do you see the firewall icon (brick wall in front of the blue earth)? Your router usually needs port forwarding to get rid of the firewall!

You might be a victim of Direcway's Fair Access Policy, have a read through this article (remember though that it's from May 2003)
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...te=transponder

Also this info, but it's not dated so I've no idea how old it is!
http://www.ssi-iraq.com/faq.html#hughes_filesharing

It's probably worth your while calling & finding out exactly what their policy is now regarding use of p2p apps