several times (once to Videon for a year, then to Shaw, then back to Videon, soon back to Shaw - a long story but not a problem to connect, first time every time!)
Videon required sending the account name and dhcp(option 1under External Interface Configuration), Shaw requires option 2, which only requires selecting option 2 and nothing else. Option 1 requires a valid account name which with Videon was videonxxxxxx .
I mention Videon only because Shaw just took them over and has been switching servers and service. We're running ver 4.1.2 so far, but started with 4.0something.
Back to first things first, can you connect to the local network, that is you do have two ethernet cards and you're correctly identifying which is connected to what? (you can swap them in the configuration menus).