Right my university block most ports. but they do allow use to unblock a certain amount. Ive looked at microsoft :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908874/en-us


The following ports must be available for Xbox Live to operate correctly:
• UDP 88
• UDP 3074
• TCP 3074


I assume this is to play/download and do everything else on xbox live and its games?

i think im not going to buy the 12months membership to gold just incase it doesnt work. do you get a month trial for gold with premium?

Any help would be appreciated.

You get a free month of gold when you sign up for silver initially.  Plus there are tonnes of 48 hour codes flying around, I have 2.  I havent had to open any ports on my firewall to allow Live to work, probably a good thing because all my port forwarding slots are used