Hi there was hoping someone could confirm the suspicion I have. I have been getting intermittent connection to Limewire since I got new broadband in a couple of weeks ago. ( Tiscali) I have been able to connect only at certain times and beliieve that this must be down to my ISP. Having looked at the previous articles, I decided to check my ports on- www.auditmypc.com to see if tiscali were blocking them but found that they all seem to be open.
eg
Port Number: 2846
TCP / UDP: TCP
Delivery: Yes
Protocol / Name: aimpp-hello
Port Description: AIMPP Hello
Virus / Trojan: No

is there anything else I can try to overcome this?

Lots of people have had probs with Tiscali lately.
Some people have found changing ports helps. To do this, in LW go tools > options > advanced > firewall config. There you can change LW's listening port. Good ones to try are 49152 - 65535. Someone recently got connected after weeks of pain using port 139. Have a read of these...

Tiscali & Limewire
can't connect between 5pm-11pm
I have found a solution to getting Limewire to work with Tiscali
(apologies if you've already read these!)

You could also see whether Java 1.6 makes any difference (it did for one person). Use the JRE offline installer here & remove your old Java versions before installing the new one.
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

thanks, but yeah have tried changing the ports but no good. I have checked the ports I am using on the above mentioned website and it looks like they are open so dont know how my traffic is being blocked. I have just taken out a 12 month contract with tiscali too, you know if there is any way I can get out of that on the grounds that I am not getting a full service?

I'm not a lawyer, but I'd say probably not. You'd need to read the terms & conditions here
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/aboutus/tandc/

and also the Acceptable Use Policy & Fair Useage Policy (you'll find links on the left side of the T & C)...you'll probably find that there are mentions of not infringing on any copyrights.

Have a search with Google...see if you can find any info about Tiscali customers being able to get out of their contract.