I downloaded a qtella, gnewtellium and napshare, tried them all and none could connect, :-(. So I know something about those firewall issues, ran telnet connect1.gnutellanet.com 6346 and got a connection. No simple packet filtering firewall here, it seems to me... So I tried the handshaking I found in the protocol, but I could be doing a lot of things wrong, here:
GNUTELLA CONNECT/0.4
followed by a newline to end the sentence and another newline, and the connection closes immediately. Somehow, I got the feeling that all three of my clients get exactly the same response, since they are very fast in reporting an error, except NapShare (IIRC) which times out, but maybe after several tries. What is going on here?
Anyone who can help me out?

Thanks, David

connect1.gnutellanet.com 6346 (along with the three others) is down indefinately. I hate this hour long time spent just to find a host that is on Gnutella everytime I use it after having not used it for a few weeks. I wish someone could have a host that was always connected.

There are a lot of other threads here about not connecting, please read some of them.
Host caches send you 10 IP's and disconnect, so that is why you get the disconnect. No reason for them to stay connected, or use much bandwidth.
If you can't connect with one of those 10 IP's (or the next) you have a problem, or you are blocked by your ISP. Keep reading and keep trying and ask your ISP why they would not allow you to use the bandwidth you pay for. Ask for a refund, get a real ISP.