Newsgroups

Newsgroups are (apart from IRC) probably the oldest form of file sharing / downloading / P2P(ish) I know of.

I've used newsgroups as long as I've used computers, back in the days of outlook express newsgroups I had access to 20,000+ newsgroups although they weren't brilliant.

About 5 years ago when I moved up to broadband with Pipex, I had access to their newsgroups, again more than 20,000 and again not brilliant,
I then tried out Easynews, the first difference being I had to pay (Yes Lee, Pay !!!!) for this, $9.98 per month for 4Gb usage per month, however there were more groups and the retention was 30 odd days, the retention meant the files stayed on the servers longer and therefore had better availability for everyone.

Over the years the price has stayed the same, but the usage increased to 6Gb, 10Gb and now 20Gb per month.

I have not had a single problem with Easynews. the search pages are great, the Zip Manager is great and all in all, I would and have recommended him to anyone.

NOW...
I read on NewZbin, Giganews, a similar service had a retention of 120 days, which they have now increased to 200 days.

they also have a different levels of usage plans

• Bronze - 2Gb/Month for $7.99
• Sliver - 25Gb/Month for $12.99
• Platinum -Unlimited/Month for $24.99
• Diamond - Unlimited/Month (plus SSL) for $29.99 ($19.99 for first Month)

I'm not, and never have been sure of the legal implications of newsgroups, you can download all types of files from newsgroups as you can with torrents etc, I guess the difference being you are not uploading files, which made P2P illegal.

I am not yet tempted, unlimited access and longer retention just mean my broadband connection get hammered more, giving the ISPs more reason and justification for limiting & throttling my download speed.

Pipex - again

Unlimited -
adj.

1. Having no restrictions or controls:
2. Having or seeming to have no boundaries; infinite:
   
3. Without qualification or exception; absolute:

The continuing saga that is Pipex. - To Skip the boring intro bit, go to "However"

My on-off connection problem (pardon the pun) with Pipex started a couple of years ago, back in the slow days of 512k broadband, back in those days downloading from Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Limewire etc were extremely slow, I moved to downloading from newsgroups, I even *PAID* for access to NewZbin and Easynews,

A few calls here and there got my connection problems sorted, it felt like you were on first name terms with Tech Support/Customer Services.

As broadband evolved, Pipex grew, I upgraded to 1Mb, then 2Mb, and finally last Aprill, a whopping 8Mb connection, downloading from Newsgroups at 800Kbps, ( I only lived 800m from the exchange).

As regular readers know, I moved house in November getting the usual moving house problems with my ISP, (cancelling and rejoining with another username).

A couple of connectivity problems and I was up and running in Decemeber, problems that I put down to BT and it's infrastructure.
I am now further from (a different) exchange but still get connected at 4.5Mb, with downloads at approx 400kbps.

However

My relationship with Pipex has seem to break down, I logged yet another problem a couple of weeks ago, was asked to run the usual speedtests and report back to Tech support, this I did with the standard "check your hardware" and "it's a problem at the BT end".
after chasing this again last week, I received a letter from Pipex, the full letter can be found here, however phrases such as ....

"We have established that your usage levels are in excess of the levels we would expect for normal home use"

and

"We would like you to change your usage behaviour immediately".

Grrrrr

In my eyes, unlimited means exactly that.

This is not over.... Oh No

Griffin, UKFSN - Looks like you'll be having an influx