Hi Irish,
The above suggestion to telnet the port will certainly verify that there's no blocking. If you've an IP Address starting with 90 or 92 those were blocked ranges at one point and 1and1 may not have removed them from their lists.
If you end up disconnecting router and plugging straight into modem remember that you'll need to power off the modem before you connect the PC to it, and also remember to make sure you've a firewall of some kind running when you do that
If it still doesn't work even after confirming that you can hit 1and1's address ok straight from PC to modem it points to an issue with VM
What University are you at?