news.individual.net

minutes -

Not noticably different to usual, but then I am a NTL xxxx I mean Virgin Media customer, so every news and mail server runs like an arthritic snail.

Nick,

I actually went back to news.btinternet.com because I was having problems like yours a while ago, bt is quite quick. Where's that wood gone again.

I don't have much experience with news feeds other than with Easynet and BT, but both have always provided a decent service, BT being marginally better than easynet.

I also don't know if folks look at this aspect of an ISP before changing to them?

NTL was always a cr*p email provider, and rebranding as Virgin won't change that quickly, that's why services such as news.individual.net have a market.

Google is OK for reading newsgroups if you are on the web and if you are a registered user (Gmail accounts etc) but posting can be a little fraught and the post takes a long time to appear.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

In message , Nick H writes

No problems here, its about the best news server I have found Could it be your ISP?

"Julian Tether" wrote

I'm on Pipex but found their own news server missed posts. Internet connection itself seems ok - would it be possible for the isp to have a specific problem with the news.individual.net server?

Nick H

Shouldn't be a problem, unless they charge the ISP for access, that might make it more of a problem.

Usenet doesn't charge for access per se, but I don't know how individual ISP's get along with carrying all or most of the Usenet hierarchy. I suspect that the more popular ones are carried but speciality sites might not.

All of the uk.rec sites are usually carried.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Used to work on IT support and 'users' always complained we had the attitude "my bedroom light comes on, so yours should do as well". It was sort of true, but I've had the frustration of calling support people myself and having some smart arse say - well I can log on from here/works OK for me/nothing wrong our end/etc...

That said, seems to be OK from here and I'm using Google, take a look over at the .org.uk/forum, that's packed up altogether and did a week back too.

"Kenneth_John_Russell" wrote

Google's a bit of a different kettle of fish being web based. When I first 'discovered' this NG, I knew nothing of usenet and worked through the mailgate, which is also web based, assuming it to be just another sort of forum. When mailgate started having significant outages I a) found out what usenet is all about and b) signed up with news.individual.net (or rather its free predecessor). For better or worse I use OE as my client on the PC and something from quesnetsoft (sp?) on the handheld, both have recently started hanging during the download process - particularly irritating on the handheld as one of the joys of a 'proper' news server is that you can (or should be able to) synch in a few seconds, switch off the power hungry wireless, then read and reply to any posts at your leisure before switching on the wireless briefly to synch again.

Nick H

A couple or three times in the last month I have failed to connect, usually in the evening around 2300. A retry some five or ten minutes later goes OK. Downloading then proceeds with no hangs.

Usually the connection is instantaneous and downloading headers and bodies usually proceeds as if one continuous process with no hangs (as indicated on netmeter).

Google have improved a lot lately.Posts now usually appear in a couple of minutes. Mark.

Response from news.individual.net support:-

Our server is fine, and we know from other Pipex users that Pipex is (sometimes) messing with NNTP traffic:

| From: Datemas | Newsgroups: uk.telecom.broadband | Subject: Re: individual.net playing up ? | Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 09:16:11 -0000 | Message-ID: | | In article , | snipped-for-privacy@phoenixbbsZEROSPAM.co.uk says... | > I'm on pipex, and fwiw it's been a little patchy again tonight :-/ | >

| For the past few weeks Pipex have been throttling newsgroup access from | about 5pm until about 11pm. This stops access to all newsgroups | including Homecall's own newsgroup. Thus, it is not a News.Individual | problem. | | | Jim

So you might want to check in that direction ... And you can also try to switch to our alternative NNTP port in case Pipex is just filtering by port, not by protocol:

Nothing back from Pipex - time to change ISP?

Nick H

Still no response from pipex to my emails but finally got through on the 'phone. The chap confirmed that they were applying some 'traffic mangement' at peak times but expressed surprise it was 'that slow'. I asked about their own news server as I had been unable to connect to it and he told me they were no longer accepting new subscribers (I have had pipex as my ISP for some years but always used the news.individual.net server). All in, though he was quite helpful, I sensed a distinct lack of interest in supporting usenet - is this the beginning of the end for this venerable old network?

Can anybody suggest a good usenet friendly ISP?

Nick H

Usenet is a non-revenue service, thus a lot of ISP's won't support it. At least they guy was reasonably honest about it.

BT's service is good, although there are loops to go through these days as they require login with your username and password, but obviously if you are a customer then you'll have that.

I don't think it (Usenet) will die, but it is increasingly seen by ISP's as a sideline issue which they would like to dispose of.

Peter Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

In message , Nick H writes

I've been with Demon for the last 11 years, the last few of them on broadband, and have very rarely had any significant problem with their news feed (or indeed any other aspect of their service). They have been extremely reliable. For that reason (plus not wishing to change my email address) I'm staying with them.

Another issue when you change ISP is keeping your old email address (assuming you want to)

We are a BT customer at home and at work, but we have retained our Easynet POP3 accounts so we can keep the same email addresses that we had before.

Googlemail is another option, I use it for the US engine list email traffic and it is fine. Being a Gmail user it also lets you into other parts of Google as well as the mail side. Let me know if you want a Gmail invite.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

"Prepair Ltd" wrote

Never used pipex mail account and the gateway one we had before we went broadband is long forgotton, so for better or worse it's hotmail or nothing at the moment. Don't really know anything about Gmail (assume it's another web based job like hotmail) but I like to keep things simple so couldn't really be doing with multiple email addresses.

Nick H

Gmail is web-based, and includes a couble of gb of storage/web space.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

That is the key, to run a even a reasonable news server takes considerable resources both in hardware and probably more important bandwidth. Gawd knows what the daily traffic is on even just the text groups is now, several Tera Bytes no doubt if not tens of Tera Bytes...

As most internet users don't know what usenet is the ISPs can't see a viable business model for charging for a service that most of their customers don't want.

As for retaining an ISP so you retain an email address, that is pretty lame excuse. Get a domain name and email hosting and just use which ever ISP is offering the best value/reliable internet connection to access that hosting service. Yes, you have to change your email address but only once not every time you want or need to change your ISP.

"Prepair Ltd" wrote (snip)

I certainly hope not, I think it's still a very valid service, particularly where on-line time is expensive either in terms of cost or battery power. I also find the threaded discussions far easier to follow than most web base forums (fora?) - even as presented by OE!

Nick H