ISP Shopping
The Ranger
recommended posting her, too.
I'm going back to the market for an ISP.
Two questions:
1) Are there any newsgroups dedicated to discussion of ISP's? (e.g.: There
is a newsgroup dedicated to discussing the different news server services --
alt.binaries.news-server-comparison.)
2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
third-party], offer multiple POP's for the San Jose area, all at a
reasonable price (no more than $24.95 / month with pricing breaks for yearly
subscriptions? And, have an informed tech-support both through phones and
their internal newsgroups? [One respondent recommended Rahul.com; any
others?]
I don't have the technology [available] to use cable, ISDN, or DSL (yet...
Someday, but not at this time.) I am reasonably technical, too, so shell
accounts are a possibility. I **prefer** using IE/OE but can learn a new
skill.
Currently, ELN (Earthlink) is experiencing some major problems with their
newsgroups/newsservers. (A recurring theme for the last 18-25 months
depending on the user posting to their internal support newsgroup.) Also,
there are some problems regarding whether a user is concurrently logged in
(multiple connections to the same account) where notices are sent and then
the customer billed even after verifying that this is not the case. Mistakes
in monthly billing where rates seem to vary depending on who's cooking the
books. Their web-based support tools are inaccurate on the best of days and
useless all the others...
I've used AOL, and left because I found logging in impossible. I moved to
Prodigy but left because of their [acknowledged] newsgroup and connection
problems. I'll be moving on from ELN because they're not willing to even
acknowledge a problem.
The Ranger
Howard Delman
> 2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
> newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
> third-party], offer multiple POP's for the San Jose area, all at a
> reasonable price (no more than $24.95 / month with pricing breaks for yearly
> subscriptions? And, have an informed tech-support both through phones and
> their internal newsgroups? [One respondent recommended Rahul.com; any
> others?]
I'm very pleased with Rawbandwidth www.rawbandwidth.com . They meet your
requirements.
Howard Delman
San Jose
John Navas
Check out Sonic.net
In <%ZGP5.12403$U4.6...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "The
Ranger" <cuhul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
--
Best regards,
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>
CABLE MODEM/DSL GUIDE: <http://Cable-DSL.home.att.net/>
Morris Jones
>2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
>newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
>third-party]
Personally I'd rather have my ISP contract out for newsgroup service.
I think it's more likely to get reliable attention when it's not a
distraction from the ISP's "real" business.
(There are notable exceptions. Best.com in the Matt Dillon days had
excellent usenet service.)
Mojo
--
Morris Jones <*>
San Rafael, CA
mo...@whiteoaks.com
http://www.whiteoaks.com
Gandalf Parker
> >2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
> >newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
> >third-party]
>
> I think it's more likely to get reliable attention when it's not a
> distraction from the ISP's "real" business.
>
> (There are notable exceptions. Best.com in the Matt Dillon days had
> excellent usenet service.)
In the old days a newsserver could be setup and run without ever
having to touch it for years and years. Now it seems you must
upgrade the hard drive every 6 months and the pipe every 12
months just to support those binary groups for less than 5%
of the ISPs customer base. I dont know ISPs for going
external on news.
One note to the contrary though. I do think that local
ISPs benefit from being able to do their own ISP
newsgroup for members to talk to members. Local ISPs
cant answer every question about every OS running
every personal choice of internet software. A large
amount of customer service can be done by allowing
users to answer questions for other users.
Gandalf Parker
John Navas
In <3A19D624...@community.net>, Gandalf Parker
<gan...@community.net> wrote:
>In the old days a newsserver could be setup and run without ever
>having to touch it for years and years. Now it seems you must
>upgrade the hard drive every 6 months and the pipe every 12
>months just to support those binary groups for less than 5%
>of the ISPs customer base. I dont know ISPs for going
>external on news.
>
>One note to the contrary though. I do think that local
>ISPs benefit from being able to do their own ISP
>newsgroup for members to talk to members. Local ISPs
>cant answer every question about every OS running
>every personal choice of internet software. A large
>amount of customer service can be done by allowing
>users to answer questions for other users.
ISP's seem to feel that most users are better served by chat rooms
and/or web-based discussion forums, rather than classic Usenet.
Gandalf Parker
>
> ISP's seem to feel that most users are better served by chat rooms
> and/or web-based discussion forums, rather than classic Usenet.
Ive fought that battle on the ISP side. "make them learn usenet"
I said. Eventually I have to concede to the fact that no matter
what you do, 95% of the users still think that
"if it aint WWW then it aint Internet".
Ive seen some ISPs local newsgroups dwindle to nothing.
The only way to save them seems to be to web them.
Only Sonics still gets good use. But then I think that Dane
actually being in them helps. It may also be misleading since
his shell machine also gets far more use than Ive seen on
most shell machines. It might be alot of activity but still
only being done by something like %5 of his user base.
Gandalf Parker
Daily we see increasing evidence that "foolproof internet
software" is indeed doing its job.
ab...@mix.com
> Now it seems you must
> upgrade the hard drive every 6 months and the pipe every 12
> months just to support those binary groups for less than 5%
> of the ISPs customer base.
Guess again - I see more than half the users on the servers
I use have these groups open, constantly, all the time.
Billy Y..
Gandalf Parker
> Gandalf Parker <gan...@community.net> writes:
> > months just to support those binary groups for less than 5%
> > of the ISPs customer base.
> Guess again - I see more than half the users on the servers
> I use have these groups open, constantly, all the time.
Well it wasnt really a guess. I certainly wish it was that
way, more like it was before www. Percentages like that are often
a topic of discussion in ISP management lists and newsgroups.
Those that use newsgroups use them all day, yes. But of an
internet providors full customer base they are few.
When people check they tend to be dissapointed to find their
percentages. A surprising number pay for their account for years
without ever using it believe it or not. Something like 3% or
so, another 5% using it occassionaly thru a year. Another 10-20%
might only use email (although they demand a full-service ISP to
do it from), and more than half only surf and email. Whats
very surprising is that systems which felt they catered to
elite knowledgeable users came up with the same numbers.
Large corporations in the computer field which offered services
to its own members even had the same basic numbers.
Im definately not happy with them but I can see it even
when Im doing customer support for ISPs or doing house calls
as a computer user group member.
Gandalf Parker
The Ranger
> In the old days a newsserver could be setup and run without
> you must upgrade the hard drive every 6 months and the
> less than 5% of the ISPs customer base. I dont know ISPs
> for going external on news.
Which makes me curious (from an amateur's POV): why support binaries at all
when they're such a drain and there isn't a minimum-level of "clientele" to
support the necessary equipment? If inclusion of these groups make it too
tough to support the overall newsgroup hierarchy, why not just acknowledge
that you're not going to support binaries? If these specialty-groups leach
such significant resources from the remaining servers, dropping multiple
performance meters and making it so that "5% savvy user" notices -- isn't
that a no-brainer?
<sigh>
Just curious...
The Ranger
Gandalf Parker
Quite true. (And I wont get into the theory that binary
and html postings will kill usenet completely)
I know of small ISPs who have gone to "text only" newsgroups.
I also know of some who have dropped all of the porn and warez
binaries, Keeping only ones like clip-art, fonts, and wav's.
Quickly you notice a rebirth of the problem that "$20 unlimited"
accounts caused. Systems which had $20 accounts offering 150
hours a month had to go to $20/unlimited. Then they had to
rewrite their Terms of Service to define unlimited as
something like "personal use" so that people wouldnt run servers.
It didnt matter that 90% of the users never used that much
internet, when calling for an ISP they heard limited hours
and hung up.
While only a small percentage of users actually make use
of newsgroups, a fairly high percentage know they should
get it. If one ISP offers 50,000 nesgroups (most are too
smart to say they offer ALL newsgroups) and another
offers less then people move on. The ones I giggle at are
the ISPs that offer huge long lists of services with
entrys that other ISPs consider automatic and not
worth adding to the list. Like DNS service (meaning
just the lookup feature :) or the ability to do
mousable graphic images on their web pages.
Its a tactic, but it works. I will try and dig up
some of the examples of this that I have somewhere.
I sent them to my ISP as a joke asking
"why dont YOU offer all of this?"
Gandalf Parker
Chuck Blaisdell
"The Ranger" <cuhul...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%ZGP5.12403$U4.6...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...> I'm going
back to the market for an ISP.
> 2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
> newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
> third-party], offer multiple POP's for the San Jose area, all at a
> reasonable price (no more than $24.95 / month with pricing breaks for
yearly
> subscriptions? And, have an informed tech-support both through phones and
> their internal newsgroups? [One respondent recommended Rahul.com; any
> others?]
I highly recommend my current isp, The Diamond Lane. www.tdl.com
Newsgroups are very good, and customer support is terrific. Email to
customer support is usually answered within minutes. Never have been on
hold at all when calling for tech support by phone.
David E. Fox
> 1) Are there any newsgroups dedicated to discussion of ISP's? (e.g.: There
> is a newsgroup dedicated to discussing the different news server services
> -- alt.binaries.news-server-comparison.)
This newsgroup (ba.internet) seems to qualify.
>
> 2) Are there any local (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Cupertino) ISP's [that offer
> newsgroups as part of their "package" without contracting out to a
> third-party], offer multiple POP's for the San Jose area, all at a
There are quite a few. I use tsoft/rawbandwidth.com now, after being a
best.com customer for 5+ years. Biggest reason for the switch was DSL, as
well as best.com no longer giving static IP to dialup accounts. rahul.net,
I've heard, is quite good.
rawbandwidth/tsoft has two news feeds, one of which is outsourced to
supernews. It works fairly well, and seems to be better than the newsfeeds
on best.com.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Fox Thanks for letting me
df...@tsoft.com change magnetic patterns
Davi...@entex.com on your hard disk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dane Jasper
: One note to the contrary though. I do think that local
: ISPs benefit from being able to do their own ISP
: newsgroup for members to talk to members. Local ISPs
: cant answer every question about every OS running
: every personal choice of internet software. A large
: amount of customer service can be done by allowing
: users to answer questions for other users.
We've gotten a lot of benefit from the community that's created in local
discussion groups. As we've expanded, we've gotten demand for access from
customers all over the world who are hosting with us, but dialing up in
other countries. Initially, we deployed a web based newsreader, but it's
pretty poor, so we've just gotten NNTP AUTH online, and we're really pleased
about it.
__[ /etc/motd ]__( Sonic System News )_________
(The MOTD is available via email...see http://www.sonic.net/motd for details)
Wed Dec 6 16:38:19 PST 2000 -- Sonic.net now supports NNTP AUTH to provide
controlled access to non-binary groups on news.sonic.net from outside of
our network. If you have any questions or comments please bring them to
news:sonic.net -Kelsey
--
Dane Jasper Sonic.net, Inc.
(707)522-1000
mailto:da...@sonic.net http://www.sonic.net/
Key fingerprint = A5 D6 6E 16 D8 81 BA E9 CB BD A9 77 B3 AF 45 53