Usenetserver.com Adjusts rates Toasty

[MustISO]

The problem with ISP newsgroups, for example, is the restrictions on use. I have comcast and they give you 1GB per month. I could use that in an hour (depending on speeds). These usenet services that you pay for offer anywhere from 6GB/mo to unlimited/mo.

 

[oaaltone]

Originally posted by: grifterspawn
Whats so wrong with the news server that comes with everyones ISP? I use Cox and their news server is great.

I'm at UMASS, and use the campus' internet. They have their own usenet server, but it's text only... no binary groups.

I have no choice but to shell out a few bucks a month.

 

[TurtleMan]

man.. my experience so far is terrible, cant connect, or once im connected, after couple mins then i will be disconnect and
can never reconnect to the server again. Wat kind of service is that compared to easynews, I trying out both right now
and easynews is totally over usenetserver. TERRIBLE..

btw, does anyone know any decode program for ng, cuz i dl bunch of txt files into my computer, i need to decode them.
thx

 

[LordSnailz]

anyone know how newsgroups are compared to using edonkey or mirc? I know with newsgroups you get first dibs but what about retention and how complete the items are?
TIA!

 

[Lars]

I downloaded close to 14GB over the past 36 hours, however many of the movies I downloaded are not 100% complete. Average speed was about 2mbps. Pretty good deal.

 

[TurtleMan]

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
anyone know how newsgroups are compared to using edonkey or mirc? I know with newsgroups you get first dibs but what about retention and how complete the items are?
TIA!

edonkey - someone might have some fake crap lable other stuff ..
mirc - realiable, but a lot trojan horse floating around, need to wait in line to get the stuff u want ..
newsgroup - fast, a lot different selection, but sometime or most of the time it will miss a file which lead an incompelte download

 

[noxxic]

FYI, they are having problems with the arrival of new customers, but they just added another server yesterday so maybe that'll help out a little.

 

[SirDante]

Originally posted by: noxxic
FYI, they are having problems with the arrival of new customers, but they just added another server yesterday so maybe that'll help out a little.

Anandtech effect.

I'll give them a few months until they hike prices or go under. Too cheap for the b/w we're gettin.

 

[Shinj1EVA]

Yay!~ Usenet access at school for me

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: grifterspawn
Whats so wrong with the news server that comes with everyones ISP? I use Cox and their news server is great.

Well, that assumes your ISP has news. I have a cable modem with a local (small) cable company. When I got it several years ago, they just provided pass though to a third party ISP. Originally, it was ISPChannel - an outfit set up to provide ISP services to mom&pop cable companies. They had OK service, not great, and adequate usenet. However, their business plan didn't work out (got less than 10% of their projected customers) and went belly up. Then the cable company switched to @home, which had better (still not great) service and usenet. Of course, we all know what happened to @home...

After that, the cable company decided to run their own ISP. They claimed (prior to the changeover) that performance would be much better, services would be expanded, prices would be lower, and the changeover would be painless, etc. They explicitly said that usenet would be provided. Well, the changeover was a nightmare that took a month, services were grim, prices stayed the same, performance was (at best) only slightly better, and they decided that usenet would be too expensive to provide, so there would be none. When I complained about the usenet situation, they told me to use Google...

So, there are some (me, at least) who need a third party news provider to have any news at all...

ted

 

[AllPurposeNothing]

Pardon my lack of knowledge regarding this but:

As a dial-up-modem user (DSL is unavailable where I live and I detest Comcast), am I better signing up for the 2 connections at 32 kbps or the single connection at 64 kbps?

Will there be any noticable difference? What are the benefits of one over the other?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Mumford

 

[noxxic]

Anandtech effect.

I'm pretty sure it's not AT (not that i'm putting AT's power to f**king down servers ). Not too many people here care about nntp servers anyway. There was a buz about it long before it was posted here.

I'll give them a few months until they hike prices or go under. Too cheap for the b/w we're gettin.

Why wait? Leech now! Seriously though, they've been around and I doub't they'll go under anytime soon.

 

[noxxic]

AllPurposeNothing: I'd pick 2 x 32. That way even while you're downloading binaries, you can read something else. You can combine the two anyway with free software like GrabIt or Binary News Reaper when downloading binaries.

 

[alm99]

I am getting attbi this weekend, I haven't used newsgroup in sometime with the help of forte. I was on time warner road runner back then. Somebody please fill me in, I am clueless now as to how to set it up and what to do. How are attbi's newsgroups? I am also renting a modem from attbi until i get buy my own. Is there an advantage to owning your own modem? Does attbi cap their modem more than if I were to buy my own modem?

Any help is appreciated

 

[Entity]

I'm getting AMAZING speeds to this (6 connections, each at 2Mb/s+). No more need for me to rip my own CDs...I'll just DL 'em now.

Rob

 

[cricky]

Alm99 --

I have ATTBI, too. Their newservers are okay. Nothing great. They allow four connections (I think, although I've done more) and have stable speeds (I always max out at 1.5). They have the alt.binaries.cd.image, alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 and alt.binaries.vcd groups for the most part. They block all the alt.binaries.warez groups, and a number of others.

The trouble with ATTBI is their retention. If you don't get it like the day it is posted, or within a half day, it's gone... So you have to really keep up.

Do yourself a favor and get a newsgroup binary downloading program. Something like Grabit (my fav - because it's free) or Newsbin (more powerful but not free). They will make it a lot easier to find what you are looking for over Agent, I feel.

ATTBI's news server is netnews.attbi.com. It doesn't require authorization, because they check for your IP address. It's fairly quick. It used to be really slow downloading headers, but fast with files. But they fixed that.

PM me if you have any other questions...

--Christopher

 

[SirDante]

Originally posted by: Entity
I'm getting AMAZING speeds to this (6 connections, each at 2Mb/s+). No more need for me to rip my own CDs...I'll just DL 'em now.

Rob

same here. too bad it's not constant...wavers a lot.

 

[LouPoir]

Super deal. Excellent download speed and OK retention. I'm impressed out of the gate but we shall see what happens in a month.

Lou

 

[clarkmo]

For downloading it doesn't get much easier than Grabit. Xnews is also free and many more features. It took a little getting used to after Grabit but it's worth the time spent in learning the features. Xnews.

 

[TurtleMan]

dude... im getting like crappy speed and connection from thier server

first. thier news.usenetserver.com is crappy like crazy, since i sign up, i can hardly log in or after a while i will have no connectoin to the place.
second, i found out the west server, and i log in, have okay speed, untill this afternoon, i can't log in again .
third. thier east server, wtf, can't even log in, like my account does not exist here..

am i missing something here ? cuz the service ain't that great and speed is not constant at all
maybe too many user? a lot lag spike too ...

btw my connection is excellent with easynews, so there is nothing wrong with my connection at all.

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: TurtleMan
dude... im getting like crappy speed and connection from thier server

first. thier news.usenetserver.com is crappy like crazy, since i sign up, i can hardly log in or after a while i will have no connectoin to the place.
second, i found out the west server, and i log in, have okay speed, untill this afternoon, i can't log in again .
third. thier east server, wtf, can't even log in, like my account does not exist here..

am i missing something here ? cuz the service ain't that great and speed is not constant at all
maybe too many user? a lot lag spike too ...

btw my connection is excellent with easynews, so there is nothing wrong with my connection at all.

It could be something in between your server and usenetserver. My connection was using up 24% of a 100MB/s connection -> oc3, so I can tell you that their connections do provide what the claim. I downloaded 7gb so far since my first post.

Rob

 

[credent]

I was wondering if anyone who uses Usenetserver has been able to share their account. As in, split the cost of an account with someone and then both use it ~ equally. Their policy seems to indicate they don't tolerate this, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried it anyways.

 

[vk8]

You can go into your control panel and it tells you what ip is/was accessing the system, how long and how much was downloaded, so I am sure they would be able to see if two people were using the same account at the same time. I had planned to do that until I saw that disclaimer, but I'd rather not take the chance.

 

[Kilrsat]

Just a little note on service levels and such:

I jumped in on this deal about 2 days ago, and since then I've seen total download speeds as high as 5.2Mb/s, with the average right around 4Mb/s using 4 connections. I'm pretty sure somewhere along the line its my connection that's limiting this, but I've basically been seeing these speeds for the 19 hours a day I've had things running tests.

So it doesn't look like they have any major speed issues, the completion has been excellent (well over 90% from what I've been browse), and the retention is about 4-7 days, depending on the group.

For $14.45/mo with the newsbin discount, I don't think it can get much better than this.

 

[cow736]

have a question for you guys.

What are you using to download from newsgroups? I'm currently using ForteAgent.

Also what utility program are you using to monitor your download speed connection?

thanks