The End is Nigh

I was stuck in the same position with AT&T/Bellsouth. I went with Agent Premium News, the Forte company that makes the Agent News Reader. I pay $2.95/month. Have never had an interruption in service.

I've been using Google ever since AOL dumped Usenet. Trouble is Google doesn't carry any of the binaries, but then neither does Verizon. I found that out when we switched a couple of years back.

...all you have to do is Google "free usenet servers". You'll find a ton of them out there. Then choose one that serves up the NG you want, and set up your browser of choice to use that server. As long as you can get on the net, you're golden.

I used to do this with my PowerBook - when roaming off my home net...my ISP won't let me access NGs or my own e-mail using my client of choice unless I'm on my home network. No biggie - webmail or secure server on the road, and free usenet sever for NG access.

Choices...one ALWAYS has choices...

When I watched the Verizon guy spend a day and half hooking up my neighbor it brought the thought to mind - you can change the name - but it's same old phone company. Hopefully optonline won't use this as a excuse to do the same. Optonline originaly set me up for cable in under and hour. When they offered net services it took me about 10 minutes to do the hardware conversion myself.

Hi.

giganews is something like $3 a month.

I know, not free, but in this world, whadda ya expect.........

Be aware though that many folks blame Google for all the spam on Usenet, and they will not respond or reply to messages posted via the Google interface.

To old timers like me, when you say "the same old telephone company" our mind registers Bell. I still haven't gotten used to having other telcoms :-)

I still put 'Bell Telephone Co.' on the memo line of my checks as I tend to forget what verizon is. Hope it irritates them.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.