Usenet problems

[Guest]

- Peering with other news providers. You must establish relationships with other platforms to send/receive messages and for what hierarchies you exchange with each other. For example one peer may agree to send you everything from a particular sub, like sci.* and not for others. It's a complex set of relationships that dictates what messages you will and won't receive from other peers. It's a complex, distributed, server-to-server type of network.

And yet, this was already established.

- Retention. A few TB of storage could be a huge understatement. Depending on your retention period and subs, this can be in the petabytes. Even consider text only, with a hypothetical 30 MB of news per day to be retained for a period of 1 year (low) would require over 10 TB of storage (just for the content itself - not to mention filesystem overhead etc).

And yet, this was not an issue since the vast majority of the retention was stored remotely.

- Network bandwidth. You have to consider (even with a small number of users) the fact that a handful of people may pop on at the same time every couple of weeks and download a huge amount of content. If you serve media content in alt.bin imagine a few users on high speed connections trying to download a movie at the same time. They can either get their content quickly (requires a large amount of bandwidth) or it can take forever, resulting in a low quality of service.

Low quality of service is better than no service. Again, this was not an issue.

All things considered, what Sonic had worked quite well and didn't require building an entire "modern Usenet platform" nor require pulling "substantial staff resources" to maintain. What's the real reason for killing Usenet at Sonic?

[Guest]

Low quality of service is better than no service. Again, this was not an issue.

Until people complain about low quality of service then we're back at square 1 again.

All things considered, what Sonic had worked quite well and didn't require building an entire "modern Usenet platform" nor require pulling "substantial staff resources" to maintain. What's the real reason for killing Usenet at Sonic?

How do you know what resources are required to maintain the infrastructure at Sonic? My guess is it's been neglected for years and whenever something happens that tips the scale, someone whacks it a little to see if things improve rather than taking a look at updating everything.

[tufur]

- Peering with other news providers. You must establish relationships with other platforms to send/receive messages and for what hierarchies you exchange with each other. For example one peer may agree to send you everything from a particular sub, like sci.* and not for others. It's a complex set of relationships that dictates what messages you will and won't receive from other peers. It's a complex, distributed, server-to-server type of network.

And yet, this was already established.

- Retention. A few TB of storage could be a huge understatement. Depending on your retention period and subs, this can be in the petabytes. Even consider text only, with a hypothetical 30 MB of news per day to be retained for a period of 1 year (low) would require over 10 TB of storage (just for the content itself - not to mention filesystem overhead etc).

And yet, this was not an issue since the vast majority of the retention was stored remotely.

- Network bandwidth. You have to consider (even with a small number of users) the fact that a handful of people may pop on at the same time every couple of weeks and download a huge amount of content. If you serve media content in alt.bin imagine a few users on high speed connections trying to download a movie at the same time. They can either get their content quickly (requires a large amount of bandwidth) or it can take forever, resulting in a low quality of service.

Low quality of service is better than no service. Again, this was not an issue.

All things considered, what Sonic had worked quite well and didn't require building an entire "modern Usenet platform" nor require pulling "substantial staff resources" to maintain. What's the real reason for killing Usenet at Sonic?

The only part of a usenet server I encountered from Sonic was an authentication and article server. I was getting binaries from over 800 days and posts not in the groups Sonic presented. It really wasn't uncommon to see a server message, 'Not found in these groups. Looking elsewhere' and still get my download. I believe sonic was just running front end software with Easynews handling the back end storage and communication.

Currently, I am on a Highwinds reseller at 3.34 euros/month for a one year contract. Highwinds is handling everything. When I paid, I was switched to a Highwinds store and did not directly pay the reseller. Sonic could do the same for us 300 and it would cost them less than $1000/month. Or they could use the 300 to gain a better deal from Highwinds than we can by ourselves like Dslextreme did when they killed their Usenet server many years ago. I was given access to 5 Usenet servers around the US during the turmoil and consolidation. Some were Easynews where the talented admins left in droves.

Edit:Currently, one year contract @3.34 Euros is $45.95/year(includes 8% currency exchange between your own bank) a year for a DCMA compliant server that checks the DMCA take-downs for authenticity with a normal 24hr period. I didn't add the reseller I am a user not a seller. Easynews, Giganews, Supernews, etc are sucking up $10 a month for shattered uploads dating back 2000 days.....LMAO

[dummy]

Is there any news (so to speak) on this? I'm on the precipice of disabling the software which pulls Usenet NNTP articles.

[xox]

I will say that I currently keep a sonic.net account solely for this purpose! Though I realize that's a small number of users who use it. If I may volunteer some labor as an IT consultant, or even donate some hardware, it would be a fun challenge for me.

And finally, may I request that if Fonzi is onsite, could he do that thing where he hits the jukebox and makes it work again? It's down, I think.

[xox]

Pretty much out of commission at the mo'

[Guest]

It would appear Supernews has left the building as well...

-----
7:43:03 PM Unable to authenticate at server: supernews.sonic.net (481 Access Denied via @sonic.net auth server).
-----

[xox]

Indeed

[Guest]

What is going on with supernews.sonic.net?
"481 access denied via @sonic.net auth server"

[otto]

Supernews authentification error? I see I'm not the only one. Have been gone for the holiday weekend and come back to find that now Supernews is being ignored and appears to be failing now. I think Sonic should just send out a email notifying everyone that Usenet is no longer being offered, kill the links, and suggest that Sonic users go elsewhere if they want Usenet, and just add that extra cost to their monthly internet bill.