IPhone :: IMessage Can Now No Longer Authenticate

I basically have two Apple ids and the reason I have two is that one is very old, dating back to 2003 and this one was used with my .Mac account and currently used with iCloud. My second id is my linkied to my iTunes account. They were two independent accounts until iMessage came along and when I initially used my iCloud account for this service and then my iTunes account.

Now, I have iMessage on my iPhone that seems to run through an infinate loop of turn on iMessage, waiting for activation, "An error occurred", "Enter Apple ID", sign in, next, wait, wait, wait, wait and then back to "Enter Apple ID" and this happens when using either id.

I might also add that I cannot seem to download anything from iTunes.