FYI: The situation described in this thread reminds me of my problem in the thread "Initial Maven Install - repository download fails on large files<http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/maven-users/201204.mbox/%3cCAGQXBeOOrzfe+Tw7H4zrBLXERD0Sx_or2NJ-8E6nAzMSxML=w...@mail.gmail.com%3e>". It seems Windows firewall and proxies have been blamed in the past, however after I submitted my problem I have found that running in a VMWare Virtual Machine can have the same effect :). Using the same computer maven seem to handle repo download fine outside the VM, but inside VM downloads of larger files usually hangs, even if the environments are not very different: Both are Win7x64, same Java, maven and network connection.
--arneT