suport level for sonic's usenet news server?

[darrenk]

What is the current level of support for the usenet news server at sonic?

-Darren

[Guest]

Speaking of news server, I have noticed that most large posts are missing parts. So a large rar post with, say, 20 parts of 50 files each will end up having only 1 or 2 parts complete. In fact, even small posts seem to be missing sections. I would say about 90% get through, but on large posts, that is unacceptable. This has been going on for about 3-4 weeks now.

[dane]

Our Usenet infrastructure is dying.

Five years ago we spend a huge amount to build a massive cluster. Since then Usenet volume has grown at least four-fold. The systems are old, drives are failing, and the infrastructure cannot keep up with the total volume. As a result, we're missing some percentage of headers, so while downloading of messages by message ID (for example by using an NZB index) generally works, relying on our headers results in many "missing posts".

As less than 1% of our customers use the Usenet, we have no plans to reinvest in Usenet at this stage, and it's only a matter of time before these old systems reach such a state that they can no longer be patched up. At that time, we plan to stop proving NNTP to customers, and will encourage folks to subscribe to one of the many services such as Giganews, EasyNews, Astraweb, etc.

-Dane

[jneal]

I must be one of those 1%-ers.
The best part of Sonic.net (other than your stellar customer service) was your news server. Its been very reliable over the years and is the main reason I've been a customer for such a long time.
I understand not wanting to invest resources in something that only 1% of your customers use but maybe if you make the necessary upgrades and advertise that your news server is now as good as the private companies you could gain new customers to make up for the price of the upgrade. Just a thought.
I guess all I'm saying is, since I'm in Sacramento and have slow legacy DSL speed (no fusion here), losing the one major reason for being a Sonic customer is putting me in a tough situation.
~James Neal

[dane]

Yes, and I certainly understand your position on this. We have over the years made repeated investments in forklift upgrades to the Usenet infrastructure, with the last round being a really expensive one, five years ago. Meanwhile, usage has dwindled and dwindled. Add to this the availability of far more complete services in the $10-$20 range on the open market, plus the fact that all other major ISPs have stopped including Usenet, and it's simply not justifiable to spend again the hundreds of thousands dollars and hundreds of staff hours on another new Usenet infrastructure.

-Dane

[virtualmike]

While I've been using the Sonic.net newsserver, it was not a factor in my original decision to get my Internet access through Sonic.net several years ago. I always considered it to be a bonus.

Is there any chance of Sonic.net working with one of those services to offer a discount to Sonic.net customers? I can even envision reciprocal marketing. Imagine on a Usenet service's signup page something along the lines of "Sonic.net's Fusion service with no monthly caps is a great compliment to our [double-digit] Usenet gigabyte packages!"

[dane]

Perhaps, we'll look around and see if we can find a deal somewhere!

-Dane

[kieran]

While I've been using the Sonic.net newsserver, it was not a factor in my original decision to get my Internet access through Sonic.net several years ago. I always considered it to be a bonus.

Is there any chance of Sonic.net working with one of those services to offer a discount to Sonic.net customers? I can even envision reciprocal marketing. Imagine on a Usenet service's signup page something along the lines of "Sonic.net's Fusion service with no monthly caps is a great compliment to our [double-digit] Usenet gigabyte packages!"

A big +1 for that idea! I will miss news.sonic.net dearly. I already have noticed a bit of lower performance (missing posts, etc.) compared to just a year ago.

[ankh]

Another one percenter here, and I would also greatly appreciate it if Sonic will find a way to support Usenet.

Dane, this is indeed the time to be looking for some cooperation with a Usenet provider.
The Sonic system keeps getting slower, and more intermittent.

But -- you're against SOPA -- support Usenet.

Simple as that. Usenet worked, it worked very well, it got us what we have now.

Without Usenet, what's there to fall back on if the "Internet" gets locked down?

FIDONet?? Anyone know of anything at all that would still work, in the worst case, other than Usenet?

[dontiw]

I had to find a different usenet provider since the sonic one is subpar. I been using thecubenet.com 500gb block account for the last few months. Great speeds and great price! Although I wish sonic could offer us customers free or cheaper usenet access :D