Switch to Ma Bell's Sympatico. DSL

--
PDQ

--
"WillR" wrote in message ...

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?


--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?


--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

I have been very happy with GigaNews and have heard nothing but good things
about SuperNews. IMO, just stay FAR away for MegaNetNews (MegaNONews is more
like it).

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/13/05

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:18:30 -0500, WillR wrote:


Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?


Don't know about them at all

SuperNews?


That's what I'm using, I've had them for over a year and have had very
good luck with them.



Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?

Stay away from Teranews. Both the free and pay services. That applies
whether you are Kanukistani or SomewhereElseistani. Unreliable service (at
least 8 months ago this was true), poor technical support, binary groups
were mostly unreadable through Direcway broadband, but worked through
concentric dial-up. Don't know whose problem it was, just know I couldn't
read binary (abpw) postiings.





+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

In article ,
"PDQ" wrote:

Switch to Ma Bell's Sympatico. DSL

Aside from a few hiccups, Sympatico has been very reliable for me.

They have done a wonderful job weeding out the trashy newsgroups, which
is just as well. When it comes to sick-******* porn, they run a pretty
tight ship.

Then again, if you've seen one three-legged one-eyed monk performing
hula-hoop sex on a ball-gagged, bearded Australian lesbian politician,
you've seen them all.

I use Supernews. No complaints.

But why not walk to Rogers' competition and tell them why you're doing
it?

--
Life. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. -- Dr. Who

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hein... where did you hear this??? This really suck if it's for real...

Christian

WillR wrote:

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?




Forgot to mention to all...

SYMPATICO is _not_ available here.

We maintain Sympatico dial up to maintain old email -- but that's all.

WIFI Broadband 100MHz or better is a few months away yet... (community
owned and operated)

There is no effective Rogers competition yet -- we are in the sticks in
North York Region of Ontario -- bordering Brock County -- nothing here
but gophers bears and a few igloos.



--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

Christian wrote:
Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hein... where did you hear this??? This really suck if it's for real...

Christian



They sent us an email two weeks ago...



-----------
Please be advised that Rogers is discontinuing its Usenet service as of
December 15, 2005.



Internet technology is constantly changing. Usenet was one of the
earliest forms of user discussion on the Internet, but today has largely
been replaced by blogs, instant messaging, personal web pages and other
tools. As a result, fewer and fewer people are accessing Usenet.



Therefore, Rogers has decided to stop providing Usenet service to Rogers
Yahoo! customers.



Alternatives

To stay at the leading edge of new technology, we’ve introduced new and
better ways to communicate – all available at no additional charge to
Rogers Yahoo! customers:



Instant messaging


http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/

Groups


http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/

Personal web pages


http://ca.geocities.yahoo.com/

Blogs


http://360.yahoo.com/

Photos


http://ca.photos.yahoo.com/



Customers with a continuing desire to read or post Usenet text messages
or who wish to access Usenet binary groups can subscribe to third-party
Usenet service providers such as Giganews (our supplier up until the
point when we discontinue Usenet) who offer a full Usenet service on a
paid basis: http://www.giganews.com/


Once again, thank you for your loyalty to Rogers and your continued
business.



--------------


--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

Robatoy wrote:
In article ,
"PDQ" wrote:


Switch to Ma Bell's Sympatico. DSL


Aside from a few hiccups, Sympatico has been very reliable for me.


Same here -- previous provider. Rogers has a monopoly -- for the next
few months.

They have done a wonderful job weeding out the trashy newsgroups, which
is just as well. When it comes to sick-******* porn, they run a pretty
tight ship.

Shucks.

Then again, if you've seen one three-legged one-eyed monk performing
hula-hoop sex on a ball-gagged, bearded Australian lesbian politician,
you've seen them all.

That _was_ an interesting performance wasn't it?




--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

Swingman wrote:
I have been very happy with GigaNews and have heard nothing but good things
about SuperNews. IMO, just stay FAR away for MegaNetNews (MegaNONews ismore
like it).



Any comments on Easynews from anyone?

http://easynews.com/

--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

In article , WillR
wrote:

WIFI Broadband 100MHz or better is a few months away yet... (community
owned and operated)

In the meantime, then, I'd go with Supernews. You can get a one month
free trial, then get a monthly account until you get a new ISP.

Something else you can do is complain to the CRTC...

--
The moral difference between a soldier and a civilian is that the soldier
accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he
is a member. The civilian does not. ‹ Robert A. Heinlein

go to http://www.usenet-provider.com/ or type "usenet providers reviews"
into dogpile.com search engine.

I use dogpile because it searches all search engines. If you go into
preferences, you can display by search engine, relevancy, etc. You can also
set to display results on a seperate page. That means when you get the
results page and you click a link, another new page opens. When you
minimize that page the complete search page is still there, with the link
you've clicked already displayed in a different colour. Click a new link,
and get a new page, with the orig. source page still there, with two links a
different colour. Check track of each and every return, and visit them in
any order.

I went with rogers hi-speed ($45/mo), until they offered hi-speed extreme
($45/mo) which is a little faster if you buy the modem to own ($100). With
my modem in tow I just went down to ($19.95/mo) service for the last 6
weeks, and don't care realy about the speed difference for www and
newsgroups. I have often wondered what it would be like to have a real news
service. I think I'll find out, and this may offset the cost. However, in
6 weeks I have not done any major mp3 groups, and can't say whats going on
there. The odd porno - no prob. Slower yes, but its taking the pressure
off the bill for now.

When I check out newsservers, I'll pay attention to things like retention
times, etc... read all the info in these above sites. Then if I can I'll
check them out for a month, to see whats best. My next dogpile search
string is gonna be "newsfeeds.com usenet.com mp3"

Rogers is insulting us newsgroup users with this message.

forgot to mention, if you spend an afternoon down tthis road, you'll find
free suppliers, notes about best software. Some are text only, some are
html (a different animal I've never seen) - can anyone expain this? Is it
possible to use rogers server to read news with IE, not OE after midnight ,
some are this and that...

today I typed in usenet, news, giganews into the newgroup name filter search
and read all the info. Theres about 75 minutes left.

and how long messages take to post is another stat worth looking at. Some
are I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

WillR wrote:

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?


Switched to Supernews after Earthlink and Charter quit supporting
newsgroups in my area. So far, quite good. Seven bucks a month to read
all the wonderful stuff (and a great deal of drivel) from you folks:
priceless.
zorp,
jo4hn

bent wrote:
go to http://www.usenet-provider.com/ or type "usenet providers reviews"
into dogpile.com search engine.

I use dogpile because it searches all search engines. If you go into
preferences, you can display by search engine, relevancy, etc. You canalso
set to display results on a seperate page. That means when you get the
results page and you click a link, another new page opens. When you
minimize that page the complete search page is still there, with the link
you've clicked already displayed in a different colour. Click a new link,
and get a new page, with the orig. source page still there, with two links a
different colour. Check track of each and every return, and visit themin
any order.

I went with rogers hi-speed ($45/mo), until they offered hi-speed extreme
($45/mo) which is a little faster if you buy the modem to own ($100). With
my modem in tow I just went down to ($19.95/mo) service for the last 6
weeks, and don't care realy about the speed difference for www and
newsgroups. I have often wondered what it would be like to have a realnews
service. I think I'll find out, and this may offset the cost. However, in
6 weeks I have not done any major mp3 groups, and can't say whats goingon
there. The odd porno - no prob. Slower yes, but its taking the pressure
off the bill for now.

When I check out newsservers, I'll pay attention to things like retention
times, etc... read all the info in these above sites. Then if I can I'll
check them out for a month, to see whats best. My next dogpile search
string is gonna be "newsfeeds.com usenet.com mp3"

Rogers is insulting us newsgroup users with this message.



http://www.newsgroupservers.net/

Hope this helps you too...

The Rogers feed was GigaNews -- which is apparently one of the best.


And I agree on the Rogers crap... Now I'm bent too -- right oughta shape...



--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

jo4hn wrote:
WillR wrote:


Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?


Switched to Supernews after Earthlink and Charter quit supporting
newsgroups in my area. So far, quite good. Seven bucks a month to read
all the wonderful stuff (and a great deal of drivel) from you folks:
priceless.
zorp,
jo4hn

Drivel? Drivel you say? Where? lol


--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:02:52 -0500, Robatoy
scribbled:

In article ,
"PDQ" wrote:

Switch to Ma Bell's Sympatico. DSL

Aside from a few hiccups, Sympatico has been very reliable for me.

Same here, at least for the wreck. However, coverage of APBW is not
great, I seem to get all the text posts, but many times pictures are
missing.

They have done a wonderful job weeding out the trashy newsgroups, which
is just as well. When it comes to sick-******* porn, they run a pretty
tight ship.

Ah, so ABPW is sick-******* furniture porn. I get it now.

Then again, if you've seen one three-legged one-eyed monk performing
hula-hoop sex on a ball-gagged, bearded Australian lesbian politician,
you've seen them all.

Which group was that on?

Luigi
Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/humour.html
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/antifaq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...ct_Woodworking

In article , WillR
wrote:

nothing here
but gophers bears and a few igloos.

No mooses...err..meese?

In article ,
WillR wrote:
Swingman wrote:
I have been very happy with GigaNews and have heard nothing but good things
about SuperNews. IMO, just stay FAR away for MegaNetNews (MegaNONews is more
like it).



Any comments on Easynews from anyone?

http://easynews.com/

The *big* players in outsourced news service a

SuperNews
GigaNews
EasyNews

much smaller, but also very good, is:
Newsguy

To stay away from:

Meganewsservers -- they operate a number of services under the
'mega-{something}' labels, and, unfortunately, are _really_
lacking in the required skill-sets for those services.
I _left_ my prior ISP *because* they switched to "meganews"
for their news server service.

A year or so ago, Easynews was having some problems -- news volume had
gotten ahead of their system capabilities, and they were trying to
play catch up. Which is a somewhat difficult problem, because 'adequate'
resources is a moving target. wry grin

They _were_ going to get things back under control, it was just a question of
how long it was going to take. Until they got back on top of things, Until
such time as they do/did get things under control, I couldn't recommend them
in good faith, to anyone. I *don't* know -- haven't kept up with -- their
current situation, but I strongly suspect that they are 'back in good form'

SuperNews is the 'class act' of the bunch, and is the 'industry standard'
against which everybody else is measured -- *especially* with regard to
their ability to suppress *almost*all* of the 'spam' and similar pollution
of the newsgroups.

I've used Newsguy and SuperNews, they're both first-rate in my experience.
No experience with GigaNews or EasyNews, but aside from the _old_ info on
EasyNews' tech difficulties, I've heard nothing but _good_stuff_ about
both of them.

I haven't heard any body who had *anything*good* to say about Meganewsservers,
on the other hand.

Robert Bonomi wrote:
In article ,
WillR wrote:

Swingman wrote:

I have been very happy with GigaNews and have heard nothing but good things
about SuperNews. IMO, just stay FAR away for MegaNetNews (MegaNONews is more
like it).



Any comments on Easynews from anyone?

http://easynews.com/


The *big* players in outsourced news service a

SuperNews
GigaNews
EasyNews

much smaller, but also very good, is:
Newsguy

To stay away from:

Meganewsservers -- they operate a number of services under the
'mega-{something}' labels, and, unfortunately, are _really_
lacking in the required skill-sets for those services.
I _left_ my prior ISP *because* they switched to "meganews"
for their news server service.

A year or so ago, Easynews was having some problems -- news volume had
gotten ahead of their system capabilities, and they were trying to
play catch up. Which is a somewhat difficult problem, because 'adequate'
resources is a moving target. wry grin

They _were_ going to get things back under control, it was just a question of
how long it was going to take. Until they got back on top of things, Until
such time as they do/did get things under control, I couldn't recommendthem
in good faith, to anyone. I *don't* know -- haven't kept up with -- their
current situation, but I strongly suspect that they are 'back in good form'

SuperNews is the 'class act' of the bunch, and is the 'industry standard'
against which everybody else is measured -- *especially* with regard to
their ability to suppress *almost*all* of the 'spam' and similar pollution
of the newsgroups.

I've used Newsguy and SuperNews, they're both first-rate in my experience.
No experience with GigaNews or EasyNews, but aside from the _old_ info on
EasyNews' tech difficulties, I've heard nothing but _good_stuff_ about
both of them.

I haven't heard any body who had *anything*good* to say about Meganewsservers,
on the other hand.



Thanks. Seems to confirm my suspicions...

I would have preferred Easynews -- but the billing doesn't work for
business purposes. Supernews or GigaNews I guess. Rogers should shut off
any hour/minute/second now. I'll get every byte I can -- considering
they just reduced the value of the service by about 20% per year and
will be collecting the same money. :-(


You have a slightly different take than these guys -- but close enough
-- eh?

http://www.newsgroupservers.net/

--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

"WillR" wrote in message
I would have preferred Easynews -- but the billing doesn't work for
business purposes. Supernews or GigaNews I guess. Rogers should shut off
any hour/minute/second now. I'll get every byte I can -- considering
they just reduced the value of the service by about 20% per year and
will be collecting the same money. :-(

For almost a year, I used the unlimited news service of Agent Premium News
who are the makers of Forte Agent, the newsreader. At approximately $20 CA a
month and with their much higher bitrate than the metered news service
provided by Rogers, I'll be going back to them.

It doesn't bother me much that Rogers is discontinuing Usenet, but what does
exasperate me is that they're doing it while continuing to charge exactly
the same monthly fee. I'm currently looking around for a suitable DSL
replacement at which point I'll tell them to F off. And now that TV signals
are available from Sympatico through the phone wires, I may get around to
dumping their cable TV service too.

At http://www.usenet-provider.com/the highest rated service reviewed was
newsfeeds.com and they said:


Newsfeeds’ multiple server setup might be a little confusing to the
old-school Agent user who is accustomed to just one server – I know because
I was that guy. But Newsfeeds really hits a grand slam with their multiple
servers. Once I took the time to get settled in with Newsbin Pro and my new
Newsfeeds premium plus account, I found that my speeds had more than
doubled, the file retention was awesome, and the completion perfect.

I have Nesbin Pro. Because of these two reasons, so far, I think I'll be
looking into this. I have used Agent. I am using OE at the moment. For
one thing, yenc is automatic with things liek Newsbin Pro.

Upscale wrote:
"WillR" wrote in message
I would have preferred Easynews -- but the billing doesn't work for
business purposes. Supernews or GigaNews I guess. Rogers should shut off
any hour/minute/second now. I'll get every byte I can -- considering
they just reduced the value of the service by about 20% per year and
will be collecting the same money. :-(

For almost a year, I used the unlimited news service of Agent Premium News
who are the makers of Forte Agent, the newsreader. At approximately $20CA a
month and with their much higher bitrate than the metered news service
provided by Rogers, I'll be going back to them.

It doesn't bother me much that Rogers is discontinuing Usenet, but whatdoes
exasperate me is that they're doing it while continuing to charge exactly
the same monthly fee. I'm currently looking around for a suitable DSL
replacement at which point I'll tell them to F off. And now that TV signals
are available from Sympatico through the phone wires, I may get around to
dumping their cable TV service too.




I have those same thoughts you know. TV, Cells, Internet -- all outside
in the trash can...


--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

1a.m on the 16th, and alls well. If you don't here from TO in the morning,
good luck, and be sure to read all my posts.

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:01:53 -0500, Robatoy
scribbled:

In article , WillR
wrote:

nothing here
but gophers bears and a few igloos.

No mooses...err..meese?

We have all of those as well as Sympatico "service", right here in
Canada's True North.

Luigi
Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/humour.html
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/antifaq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...ct_Woodworking

bent wrote:
1a.m on the 16th, and alls well. If you don't here from TO in the morning,
good luck, and be sure to read all my posts.



Yeah -- well when It stops we'll know we've been "Rogered"...

--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

..

I would have preferred Easynews -- but the billing doesn't work for
business purposes. Supernews or GigaNews I guess. Rogers should shut off
any hour/minute/second now. I'll get every byte I can -- considering
they just reduced the value of the service by about 20% per year and
will be collecting the same money. :-(


You have a slightly different take than these guys -- but close enough
-- eh?

http://www.newsgroupservers.net/

Wrote complaint to Rogers about not getting at least a discount since
they were canceling a service which as far as I'm concerned was part
of the contract when I signed up and for which I now have to pay -
received the usual corporate form letter response - no rebate because
nobody uses newsgroups anymore ! - my tough luck for going with Rogers
I guess & should have stuck with Sympatico

We can always vote with our feet
Bob

Bob wrote:
.

I would have preferred Easynews -- but the billing doesn't work for
business purposes. Supernews or GigaNews I guess. Rogers should shut off
any hour/minute/second now. I'll get every byte I can -- considering
they just reduced the value of the service by about 20% per year and
will be collecting the same money. :-(


You have a slightly different take than these guys -- but close enough
-- eh?

http://www.newsgroupservers.net/


Wrote complaint to Rogers about not getting at least a discount since
they were canceling a service which as far as I'm concerned was part
of the contract when I signed up and for which I now have to pay -
received the usual corporate form letter response - no rebate because
nobody uses newsgroups anymore !

Which has nothing to do with nothing...

- my tough luck for going with Rogers
I guess & should have stuck with Sympatico

We can always vote with our feet
Bob


Not where I am.

Nut someday when the wireless hits...

--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

WillR wrote:

Rogers news groups turns off in a few hours.

Hopefully those of us stuck with them as a provider will find another
way to post.

Giga News?

SuperNews?

Any recommendations for us Kanukistani wreckers?




Check the Globe and Mail for an Interesting Rogers Story...
http://globeandmail.com/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...ry/Technology/

-------------
How a terror group cloned Ted Rogers' cellphone

A customer's dispute over her hefty bill helped uncover the ability of
radicals to duplicate the phones of Rogers executives




By PETER CHENEY

Saturday, December 17, 2005 Posted at 2:15 AM EST

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step — and so it was that
law professor Susan Drummond's long, strange trip into the world of
wireless security, where she learned that a terrorist organization had
appropriated Ted Rogers' cellphone number, was launched by the arrival
of a phone bill for $12,237.60.



-----------------------

Maybe that's why they need money.

Who paid Ted's bill?

--
Will R.
Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
http://woodwork.pmccl.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.” George Bernard Shaw

Bob wrote:



Wrote complaint to Rogers about not getting at least a discount since
they were canceling a service which as far as I'm concerned was part
of the contract when I signed up and for which I now have to pay -
received the usual corporate form letter response - no rebate because
nobody uses newsgroups anymore !

Wow, those assholes are really out of touch with whats going on!
John

In article ,
John DeBoo wrote:
Bob wrote:



Wrote complaint to Rogers about not getting at least a discount since
they were canceling a service which as far as I'm concerned was part
of the contract when I signed up and for which I now have to pay -
received the usual corporate form letter response - no rebate because
nobody uses newsgroups anymore !

Wow, those assholes are really out of touch with whats going on!
John

Unfortunately, they _are_, in large part, correct.

The portion of the customers of _any_ major ISP that knows that USENET
even _exists_ is *tiny*. People that have been introduced to the 'net
in the last five years are almost guaranteed to 'know' that the Internet
consists of only two capabilities: e-mail, and "the web". And probably
a full one-third of _those_ only know how to access e-mail via the web.o

for a consumer ISP, 'HTTP' (including 'HTTPS') traffic constitutes the
*overwhelming* majority of the bytes that go through their network.
"Overwhelming", meaning on the order of 90%, _or_higher_.

We *are* a bunch of dinosaurs!

On 19/12/2005 9:11 AM, Robert Bonomi wrote:

for a consumer ISP, 'HTTP' (including 'HTTPS') traffic constitutes the
*overwhelming* majority of the bytes that go through their network.
"Overwhelming", meaning on the order of 90%, _or_higher_.

We *are* a bunch of dinosaurs!

Yep, you're absolutely right. I'm a network guy at a large Canadian
university, where Usenet news has been a part of the culture for as long
as Usenet has existed. It's still used internally for some course work.
We've always supported our own server(s). But usage measured through our
Internet-facing network connections is nowadays dominated by "Web". 52%
of it is http/https, and that's been steadily increasing over the past
10 years. By contrast, Usenet news traffic has gone from 16% of our
total Internet bandwidth consumption in 1996, to almost unnoticeable
today at about 0.3%. I'm not defending Rogers' actions, but we are now
at the point where we will almost certainly abandon our Usenet feed in a
year or two. Kinda sad for the oldtimers (like me) but virtually nobody
will even notice, especially not the 'kids', who are the prime consumers
of Internet services these days. What matters to them is quick'n easy
music/video downloads, instant messaging among their friends, and free
long-distance telephony. I'm *still* tying to train mine to buy me stuff
at Lee Valley online :-)

"Doug Payne" wrote in message
10 years. By contrast, Usenet news traffic has gone from 16% of our
total Internet bandwidth consumption in 1996, to almost unnoticeable
today at about 0.3%.

Assuming your figures are correct, then it would have been a classy act for
them to continue the providing of usenet access for those old-timers who use
it. Also assuming your figures are correct, the small percentage of users
who use it would be consuming negligible bandwidth. Rogers could have
capitalized on it as a "reward" for the continued support of their
customers. I dare say that if you put Lee Valley Tools in place of Rogers,
usenet access would have continued unabated.

Upscale wrote:

"Doug Payne" wrote in message
... By contrast, Usenet news traffic has gone from 16% of our
total Internet bandwidth consumption in 1996, to almost unnoticeable
today at about 0.3%.

Assuming your figures are correct, then it would have been a classy
act for them to continue the providing of usenet access for those
old-timers who use it. Also assuming your figures are correct, the
small percentage of users who use it would be consuming negligible
bandwidth.

Doug, could you provide some figures on costs of continuing the Usenet
feed?

--
It's turtles, all the way down

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:30:44 -0800, Larry Blanchard wrote:

Doug, could you provide some figures on costs of continuing the Usenet
feed?

Why not just give news.individual.net 3 cents a day?

On 19/12/2005 11:27 AM, Upscale wrote:

Assuming your figures are correct, then it would have been a classy act for
them to continue the providing of usenet access for those old-timers who use
it. Also assuming your figures are correct, the small percentage of users
who use it would be consuming negligible bandwidth. Rogers could have
capitalized on it as a "reward" for the continued support of their
customers.

I don't speak for Rogers, but at my place the issue is not one of
bandwidth, and hasn't been one for quite some time. Hell, we've got 1.3
Gigabits/sec of that. The issue is maintenance of the news servers,
keeping the software up-to-date, patched, etc., redundancy of server
hardware and network connections, what to do about the alt.* crud and
the binary news groups, staff who actually understand the whole thing,
and on and on. I know there are tons of geeks out there who will say,
"hell, it's trivial to run an NNTP server". Anything is trivial if you
know how, but providing a robust production service is never trivial, no
matter what the underlying technology is. It all comes at a cost, and
our arguments here about removing old services are always based on that.

I'd still wager that a very significant proportion of Rogers' customers
don't have a clue what Usenet is.

I dare say that if you put Lee Valley Tools in place of Rogers,
usenet access would have continued unabated.

Hey, why don't you ask Robin if *he* wants to take it on? I suspect I
know what his answer will be. I was in the London store on Saturday,
losing cash like it was pocket lint. It was packed. I bet that if I'd
asked who there knew what Usenet was, there wouldn't have been more than
one or two, if that. Hell, some of 'em looked at the in-store computer
systems like they were an incarnation of the devil. I overheard a couple
of 'em say they'd never use them. (Aside to LV, great job on those by
the way).

On 19/12/2005 12:30 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:

Doug, could you provide some figures on costs of continuing the Usenet
feed?

I don't have $$ figures at hand (luckily for me it's not my direct
responsibility any more because it was a big !&^%&!%@ headache), but see
my previous posting about staffing, etc. It's really not so much the
purchase costs as it is the ongoing stuff. Servers are relatively cheap,
staffing is not, 24x7x365 reliability and redundancy, and maintaining
currency are not. Around here, even the rack space the servers use is an
issue, as is the A/C and electricity/UPS. By themselves they're small
change; taken as part of the whole, they're near the top of the list for
removal when things get really tight.

Keep in mind that I'm not trying to defend Rogers here. I work at a
University, not a big ISP. It sounds like they were pretty heavy-handed
in the way the way they handled the cancellation. But I don't use 'em
for Internet. I prefer DSL. I *think* my DSL ISP (Execulink) provides a
Usenet feed, but I just use the one at work since it's more convenient
for me, and it carries internal groups that we don't send to the world
that I need to use as part of my job. When it goes, I'll find one
elsewhere.

Let's face it, the Web is where it's at today. I see a lot of other
forums (fora?) moving from Usenet to Web-based things.

On 19/12/2005 2:59 PM, Doug Payne wrote:

Let's face it, the Web is where it's at today. I see a lot of other
forums (fora?) moving from Usenet to Web-based things.

It occurred to me after writing that, that if LV wanted some good PR,
they could add a Web-based woodworking forum to their Web farm. Some of
the other (non-woodworking) forums that I visit use vBulletin. Dunno
exactly what it takes to run one of those, but they work quite well.

http://www.vbulletin.com/

They use logins, but typically userids are free for the asking, and
guest access is permitted, at least for browsing. Here's an example of
one that I visit:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/

which will give you an indication of my age if you know anything about
photography :-) Hell, I remember when Lee Valley was based in a little
old house in Ottawa. I think Robin was a little boy back then.

There are others like WebBBS, phpBB, and so on. As with anything, you
have to weight the cost of operation, and the backlash when (not if) it
breaks, etc., against the potential gain.