You said "I sent the star code to the server." What happens, in detail? Do you enter the code preceded by TWO stars, like **5xxxx? If not, you're doing it wrong. If so, do any progress messages display, and/or does the screen show that it sent the command to the server?
Also: Change your DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, which are Google's high-performance DNS.