Usenet feeds going away

As of October 25, Comcast, the country's second largest ISP, will
discontinue its Usenet service, it just announced today. It previously
offered subscribers complimentary newsgroup access through Giganews,
and now it suggests they subscribe directly through Giganews if they
want Usenet access, indicating Giganews has special promotional
pricing for Comcast customers.

I know other ISPs have also dropped Usenet -- AOL in 2005, for
instance. Don't know about others. The reason that seems to always be
given, as now, is that relatively few people access newsgroups,
instead getting their information from other sources. But I suspect
another reason is the increasing spam/signal ratio and the pirated
media that are increasingly being shared through the .binaries
newsgroups.

There are other Usenet providers besides Giganews. Don't know anything
about them (or even if they're all still operational), but Wikipedia
mentions UsenetServer.com, Supernews, and Usenet.com. And you can
access Usenet for free over the Web through Google Groups, though it's
not as versatile as through a Usenet newsreader.

Sign of the times ... changing times. Like the dropping of time and
weather services by the phone companies.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
As of October 25, Comcast, the country's second largest ISP, will
discontinue its Usenet service, it just announced today. It previously
offered subscribers complimentary newsgroup access through Giganews,
and now it suggests they subscribe directly through Giganews if they
want Usenet access, indicating Giganews has special promotional
pricing for Comcast customers.


Yep I got the notice today too. Odd how we don't get a reduction in the
monthly rate since we now are going to get less service.

PC wrote:
"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
As of October 25, Comcast, the country's second largest ISP, will
discontinue its Usenet service, it just announced today. It
previously offered subscribers complimentary newsgroup access
through Giganews, and now it suggests they subscribe directly
through Giganews if they want Usenet access, indicating Giganews has
special promotional pricing for Comcast customers.


Yep I got the notice today too. Odd how we don't get a reduction in
the monthly rate since we now are going to get less service.

It's not odd. They were very careful to state that it was -complimentary-
newsgroup access. I never considered it as such, but what do I know? I'm
just a customer.

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
As of October 25, Comcast, the country's second largest ISP, will
discontinue its Usenet service, it just announced today. It
previously
offered subscribers complimentary newsgroup access through Giganews,
and now it suggests they subscribe directly through Giganews if they
want Usenet access, indicating Giganews has special promotional
pricing for Comcast customers.

I know other ISPs have also dropped Usenet -- AOL in 2005, for
instance. Don't know about others.

Verizon dropped all but the "Big 8" domains a few months ago. We can
still get the rec.xxx newsgroups because they were incuded in the 8,
but a lot of other ones are history.

The reason that seems to always be
given, as now, is that relatively few people access newsgroups,
instead getting their information from other sources. But I suspect
another reason is the increasing spam/signal ratio and the pirated
media that are increasingly being shared through the .binaries
newsgroups.

The official story was that they all are responding to the NY AG's
crusade against kiddie porn. The fact that they're all using a sledge
hammer instead of a scalpel to cut out the offending sites suggests
financial motives as well. As to binaries traffic, they always have
been a small segment of total use, there are better ways to share
porn, pirated, and legitimate material, and they could have been cut
out along with the porn groups.

There are other Usenet providers besides Giganews. Don't know
anything
about them (or even if they're all still operational), but Wikipedia
mentions UsenetServer.com, Supernews, and Usenet.com. And you can
access Usenet for free over the Web through Google Groups, though
it's
not as versatile as through a Usenet newsreader.

Depending on the poster, all of these plus other paid services have
been recommended or reviled as alternatives.

Sign of the times ... changing times. Like the dropping of time and
weather services by the phone companies.

Not to mention free churchkeys at liquor stores, windshield-and-oil
servicing at gas stations, and live human beings at check-out
counters.

I get usenet through google groups, used to get it through AOL.


I think AOL made a big mistake dropping Usenet and maybe it was
coincidence but ever since they did that they
have gone into a big decline in number of subscribers (I think
dropping Usenet probably was at least a contributing factor).

"Honus" wrote in message
...
PC wrote:

Yep I got the notice today too. Odd how we don't get a reduction in
the monthly rate since we now are going to get less service.

It's not odd. They were very careful to state that it was -complimentary-
newsgroup access.

Translation: we don't make money specifically by having usenet access so we
want to get rid of it.

I never considered it as such, but what do I know? I'm just a customer.

"stonej" wrote in message
...
I get usenet through google groups, used to get it through AOL.

I think AOL made a big mistake dropping Usenet and maybe it was
coincidence but ever since they did that they
have gone into a big decline in number of subscribers (I think
dropping Usenet probably was at least a contributing factor).

It would be nice to think that the PO'd UseNet users are hurting
corporate bottom lines, but the ISPs claim, probably with some
accuracy, that only a small minority of today's users even know about
UseNet, let alone play regularly in the newsgroups. Most go to
websites and blogs. Subscribers undoubtedly were lost, but they
probably were on the order of rounding errors. The $ub$cription
losses may have been more than covered by reduced service costs for
providing the groups.

PC wrote:
"Honus" wrote in message
...
PC wrote:

Yep I got the notice today too. Odd how we don't get a reduction in
the monthly rate since we now are going to get less service.

It's not odd. They were very careful to state that it was
-complimentary- newsgroup access.

Translation: we don't make money specifically by having usenet access
so we want to get rid of it.

I'm not going to argue.

I have not yet seen the usenet notice from Comcast but recently there
were major changes in the Comcast TV cable service in my home area.
Several channels, such as Hallmark, were changed to an extra-pay
service (digital). I called Comcast to ask why and was told that the
channels in questions (including C-Span 2 and C-Span 3) required these
changes. I have a problem believing Comcast on this point.

We did get a Big 10 sports channel, however, and one has to suspect
that profits dictated the channel changes.

Chas. Edw.

This was posted to the Seahawks NG, perhaps it'll be helpful to some.
Its NOT MY POST, I'm just passing it on.
================================================== ======

I'm posting this for people who have been abandoned by Comcast and want a
free news server to replace their old service.

This post gives full instructions for switching to news.motzarella.org
because not all of the settings you need to make are explicitly spelled out
for you when you set up your new account with motzarella.

This post takes you from not having an account, to being subscribed to all
the same newsgroups on the news.motazarella.org server in ten easy steps.

1. Go to http://www.motarella.org/
2. On their home page register for a free account. They will send you a
"user id" and a password in e-mail.
3. Open Outlook, if not already open.
4. Select [Tools] [Accounts...], and click the [News] tab.
5. Referring to the e-mail sent to you, click [Add] and enter your
information.
6. After you enter the information and click [Finish], you're not really
finished. You still need to click the [Properties] button for this new
account to put all the settings right. So click [Properties].
7. There are four tabs under Properties: [General], [Server], [Connection],
and [Advanced]. The information on the [General] tab is all okay and does
not need to be changed.
8. Click the [Server] tab. The "Server name:" should be set to
news.motzrella.org. Make sure that "This server requires me to log on" is
checked and that "Account name:" is set to the "user id" registered with
Motzarella. Make sure your password is entered. Check "Remember password"
but do NOT check "Log on using Secure Password Authentication."
9. Click the [Connection] tab and check "Always connect to this account
using:" and make sure that "Local Area Network" appears in the drop down box
if you use a LAN in your home (if your computer is connected to a router).
10. Click the [Advanced] tab and make sure that the Port No. is set to
"119."

Close out of "news.motzarella.org Properties" and "Internet Accounts."

"news.motzarella.org" now appears in your Folders pane under Outlook
(usually on the left). Click on "news.motzarella.org" and you will be asked
if you want to download a list of newsgroups. Do so. Then subscribe to the
newsgroups you like to read.

You're finished.

You can now enjoy newsgroups as usual and forget that Comcast finally broke
it's promise to provide them to customers free of charge.

(Their server wasn't that great anyway.)