It took a lot of digging and a lot of arguing. Eventually though I got a hold of someone in Executive Relations for verizon wireless. I use mobile broadband because I do a lot of moving around and this way I can use it anywhere. Recently mIRC had stopped working with the following connection messages:

* Connecting to irc.sorcery.net (9000)
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* Unable to connect to server (Connection timed out)
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* Connect retry #1 irc.sorcery.net (9000) (dns pool)
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* Unable to connect to server (Connection timed out)

When I initially approached tech support (after trying different irc servers and ports) about this they had no idea and continued to blame my computer and my firewall for this issue. A lot of forum hopping and a lot of digging not to mention a system restore to the last time any irc client worked on my computer and I found a handy little thing called ShieldsUP. This allowed me to see if the ports used to connect to irc were being blocked.. which of course they were. Even with my firewall disabled these ports are not responding in anyway which means that irc will not connect.

After over a week of playing phone tag with a woman from Executive Relations ( I think this is a nice way of saying Legal Dept.) she informed me that IRC is shareware and often used for malicious purposes and that it clearly states in the user agreement that they do not allow shareware to be used on their broadband networks.

However the following statement can be found on their website:

"If you buy broadband Internet access from Verizon Online
• We will not prevent you or other users of our service from sending and receiving the lawful content of your choice; running lawful applications and using lawful services of your choice; or connecting your choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or the provision of Internet access service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service.
• We will not unduly discriminate against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to you or other users of our service." -Verizon website

I guess.. what I want to discuss... is how do we get this assumption changed? I just want my mIRC back.