AT&T clients

Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary for
many
of us to find alternate suppliers.

Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet user
would likely use?

Any other clues or comments?

HLS wrote:
> Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary
> for many
> of us to find alternate suppliers.
>
> Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet
> user would likely use?
>
> Any other clues or comments?

In Houston, Texas, usa, we are captive consumers.
For me its either ATT DSL, Comcast cable, dialup, satellite, or cell.

Comcast did away with NG's a year ago, throttled back
the bandwidth to 1 mbps, started charging $3 per
month for cable modem rental, and upped the monthly price
to $66 for 1 mbps. With cable you will have to share you
bandwidth with your neighbor hood.

I now have ATT DSL for $35 for 5 mpbs. Five times the speed for
1/2 the cost of cable. I don't have cable tv. That does not include the
required landline phone cost of $40 per month. They gave me
a free wireless and 4 port wired modem / router. Plus $300 in rebates.
My son tells me that ATT has dropped the landline requirement.
I need to find that out.
I am not happy with ATT getting rid of the ng's, but there is no
alternative for an isp except dialup or satellite. Both are very slow.

Bandwidth - depending on me, son, and son's friend...
If two of us are running Warcraft via ethernet and one more via the wireless,
while streaming 128k web music at the same time, I barely notice any slowdown.
That would bring comcast cable to a standstill.
I estimate that with 3 comps using max everything, we use no more than
4 mbps.
I am behind 2 routers w/firewalls along with each comp being firewalled.

My business associates use Verizon cell modems on their laptops. They work
great but would never run Warcraft and can just barely stream 128k.
Stay away from 3G. Its very choked at the moment.

Satellite has limitations and is prone to dropping. It is a last resort.
56k dial up would be better if available.

If you check the header source on this post you will see I am using
http://www.eternal-september.org/ind...#Login-No-Auth
Its been reasonable ok so far. Sometimes it won't let me post for a few seconds.
I think their servers get choked up at times.

You can try searching here for open servers but admins are getting wiser
and closing open ports.

"Paul" > wrote in message -
>
> You can try searching here for open servers but admins are getting wiser
> and closing open ports.

Well, we can use Google's free access, but as others have said, the
interface
sucks.

"HLS" > wrote in news:Tbu5m.16424$iz2.7859
@nlpi070.nbdc.sbc.com:

>
> "Paul" > wrote in message -
>>
>> You can try searching here for open servers but admins are getting wiser
>> and closing open ports.
>
> Well, we can use Google's free access, but as others have said, the
> interface
> sucks.
>
>
>



There's always Altopia. I pay $6 per month for non-binary. Completion and
retention are pretty good. It's true Usenet, and you get to customize your
own headers and Organization fields.

www.alt.net


--
Tegger

"HLS" > wrote in
:

>
> "Paul" > wrote in message -
>>
>> You can try searching here for open servers but admins are getting
>> wiser and closing open ports.
>
> Well, we can use Google's free access, but as others have said, the
> interface
> sucks.
>
Use *real* usenet:

------------------------------------------------------------------
The following brief list of free text news servers is in alphabetical
order without editorial comment. It's a short list. Check out the
servers and decide for yourself which one is best for you. No one knows
what works for you better than you do.

AIOE http://news.aioe.org/

Albasani http://albasani.net/index.html.en

CNNTP http://www.cnntp.org/cnntp

ETT http://news.ett.com.ua/

Motzarella http://motzarella.org/

Solani http://news.solani.org/

Tornevall http://news.tornevall.net/

Usenet4all http://www.usenet4all.se (blocks all posts from Google)

In addition, you can get superior service if you run your *own* server -
such as Hamster and use multiple news feeds from the above and you won't
have a problem with retention - mine goes back into last year - or one
going down.

HLS wrote:
>
> Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary for
> many
> of us to find alternate suppliers.
>
> Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet user
> would likely use?
>
> Any other clues or comments?

Unless you are into pirating a lot of music and movies or the like, very
little. All day and evening surfing of text and limited binary
newsgroups like alt.binaries.food adds up to less than 150 MB / Month,
and yes that is MB, not GB. I've used 1.31 GB of news server bandwidth
in 1 year.

HLS wrote:
>
> "Paul" > wrote in message -
> >
> > You can try searching here for open servers but admins are getting wiser
> > and closing open ports.
>
> Well, we can use Google's free access, but as others have said, the
> interface
> sucks.

Beyond the interface sucking, most of the good people you actually want
to see your posts wouldn't because they block posts from Google.

I'm using usenetmonster for $3/mo and it's generally been fine. I've got
more available GB than I'll ever use, so I could probably do better with
a block account somewhere else, but for $3/mo the ambition to futz with
anything else is low. The one time I had a problem with usenetmonster I
got a response from support pretty quickly.

"Pete C." > wrote in message
ster.com...
>
> HLS wrote:
>>
>> Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary
>> for
>> many
>> of us to find alternate suppliers.
>>
>> Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet
>> user
>> would likely use?
>>
>> Any other clues or comments?
>
> Unless you are into pirating a lot of music and movies or the like, very
> little. All day and evening surfing of text and limited binary
> newsgroups like alt.binaries.food adds up to less than 150 MB / Month,
> and yes that is MB, not GB. I've used 1.31 GB of news server bandwidth
> in 1 year.

Super info.. Thanks

"Pete C." > wrote in message
ster.com...
>
> HLS wrote:
>>
>> Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary
>> for
>> many
>> of us to find alternate suppliers.
>>
>> Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet
>> user
>> would likely use?
>>
>> Any other clues or comments?
>
> Unless you are into pirating a lot of music and movies or the like, very
> little. All day and evening surfing of text and limited binary
> newsgroups like alt.binaries.food adds up to less than 150 MB / Month,
> and yes that is MB, not GB. I've used 1.31 GB of news server bandwidth
> in 1 year.

Super info.. Thanks

HLS > wrote:
>Since AT&T is dumping usenet groups for its subscribers, it is necessary for
>many
>of us to find alternate suppliers.

There are lots of them out there. Supernews is popular.

>Does anybody here have a good idea how much bandwidth a typical usenet user
>would likely use?

Hardly any, if they don't read the binaries groups. So little as to hardly
be noticeable on a modern pipe. Usenet was designed in the days when 1200
baud modems were considered very fast.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."