Karen!! I had the EXACT same problem as you. Started with MP3Downloading and through all the others, ended up at Limewire. I finally just moved all my music to a general folder on my Hard drive and uninstalled and deleted every music downloader I had. Restarted my computer and went to Limewire.com. I disabled my Norton Anti-virus and I got the Limewire 4.12.11 Pro version. Followed everything to the T AND IT WORKED!!!! After I downloaded a song to make sure I wasnt seeing things, I put my AntiVirus back on and everything was fine. I went through the same crap as you and was in tears because I could not get straight answers or ANY answers what so ever. I hope this helps ( I do realize you were having issues back in December...me too!!).
Hope it works for you as easy as it worked for me. I had to do NOTHING with my ISP or #'s.

Back in Feb. about 80% of my software was taken out by a virus so I nuked my entire system and started from scratch. I did back up the LImewire pro. though and reinstalled. It did work! I'm not sure if it was a virus all along that preventing me from connecting ( I doubt it)but I'm sure it didn't help matters at the very least.Talk about a frustrating journey! Glad you're up and running! Thanks for the advice.I'm sure many will benefit!