>>NEW TEST<<...IDT USENET IS A SHAM....
MARIUS
PREFACE:
This article has been cross-posted into alt.internet.services just
because I want others to know what is going on.
INTRO:
Well, here I go again. I must be a glutton for punishment or
something, but I can't seem to leave well enough alone. Persistent to
a fault? You bet. It's just that, for some insane reason, I can't
leave this IDT Usenet issue alone. I don't know why it ticks me off
so much...I just know that it does. So, here goes round two.
BRIEF BACKGROUND:
For those of you that know me [and aren't sick of me by now!], you
know what to do...skip right down to the results tables. Those out
there that want to know a bit about what this is all about, please
read on. I will try and keep it brief.
IDT is my first real ISP. I am by no means an INet specialist. I
have been a computer literate end-user for quite some time, but aside
from brief experiences with online companies such as AOL, CompuServe
and GNN [that hybrid ISP/online service], I didn't know what to expect
from IDT. I know what I did NOT expect...shoddy and almost
non-existent technical support, inconsistent dial-up connections and
questionable business/customer service practices. But this is NOT
about those things.
I am not another whiner seeking the perfect ISP. I understand and
accept that there is no such thing. I don't expect to connect every
time at 28.8. I don't expect ridiculously low rates either. What
this is about is the incredibly ludicrous service you and I have been
receiving from IDT with regards to that sham they call Usenet.
Once again, this is only about the Usenet.
IDT has a severe problem with their Usenet feed. During the time of
my previous "test", IDT's Usenet feed clearly revealed that you and I
were not only missing between 60-85% of the daily posts on the Usenet,
we were also missing out on approximately 10,000 Usenet conferences.
After much cajoling, IDT did eventually increase their conferences.
At last count, I believe that IDT offered between 20 and 23,000 Usenet
newsgroups, a number that is quite acceptable. But the much more
serious problem remained...that of missing out on more than half of
the Usenet posts generated on a daily basis.
I guess this is what really ticks me off. The Usenet is a BASIC part
of the service that every ISP should provide. It is a fundamental
part of the INet itself. The problem with the IDT Usenet is simple:
if you equate the newsgroups themselves as daily newspapers, the sheer
number of papers available to the IDT customer is great. What is NOT
great is that, despite all these newspapers, we are all reading news
that is severely outdated, and in many cases, we are not even getting
the chance to READ the news. What good is getting all these
newsgroups if the information in them is either sorely out of date or
simply missing in the first place?
WHAT IDT KNOWS:
IDT, in the form of technical support personnel who [regularly] visit
the IDT specific newsgroups, publicly admit to having a sever problem
with both the timeliness of the news feed they are getting as well as
its completeness. Technical personnel such as PETER WILLIAMS, RICH
MARTINO and others have all sympathized with me and all the other IDT
subscribers who have been crying foul about the Usenet for months.
They have all claimed that the IDT system administrators have been
informed of the problem and they have even gone so far as to tell us
that new, more complete and timely new feeds were under consideration.
I believe Mr. Williams and Mr. Martino. But that was at least three
months ago and since then, there has been nary a peep about this
detestable Usenet situation. I do not blame the tech people
themselves...I realize that there is only so much that they can do.
But what are frustrated IDT customers to do? Who do we have to kill
to get a decent news feed?
THE TEST AND THE RESULTS:
Just for kicks this time, I decided to test the IDT news server with
one of the fee-based Usenet providers. If any of you are curious
about my previous tests, I have them on file.
Anyway, I configured two identical setups of my Usenet browser,
Forte's AGENT. One was set to the IDT server, the other to the SUPER
ZIPPO news server on the East Coast. I conducted the tests over a few
days and here are the results. I added a new column this time around,
one that took into account not only NEW Usenet articles available on
each server on each test day, but also the TIMELINESS of the articles
that were available. Each column has two results: the one under
48Hrs. indicates the number of new articles retrieved that were dated
within two days of the actual retrieval. The other is the number of
new article headers downloaded for each news group for each server.
Remember, this is an informal test, but one I tried to conduct with
some semblance of consistency.
I believe the results speak for themselves....
DAY ONE: 5-26-96...12:45AM
Groups: 48Hrs / SZippo 48Hrs / NEWS2
a.b.doom 36 38 2 2
a.b.fonts 135 141 3 34
a.b.games 902 937 7 124
a.b.misc 799 840 16 126
a.b.multimedia.erotica 1522 1574 2 62
a.b.p.erotica 993 1014 48 212
a.b.p.supermodels 260 281 1 47
a.books.stephen.king 190 195 3 109
a.books.tom.clancy 34 38 3 26
alt.guitar 177 180 21 152
a.music.rush 62 69 4 55
a.sex 343 357 58 247
a.s.pictures.female 601 628 25 328
alt.tv.er 66 79 2 16
alt.tv.friends 70 72 10 68
alt.tv.homicide 51 53 2 42
alt.tv.seinfeld 141 146 4 170
alt.tv.x-files 322 325 9 210
DAY TWO: 5-26-96...1AM
Groups: 48Hrs / SZippo 48Hrs / NEWS2
a.b.doom 31 33 2 5
a.b.fonts 129 133 4 8
a.b.games 2318 2335 10 79
a.b.misc 1200 1206 12 63
a.b.multimedia.erotica 433 440 14 79
a.b.p.erotica 678 681 63 245
a.b.p.supermodels 189 199 11 30
a.books.stephen.king 153 155 6 82
a.books.tom.clancy 26 31 3 10
alt.guitar 119 124 12 83
a.music.rush 46 48 5 37
a.sex 236 244 21 234
a.s.pictures.female 590 599 26 260
alt.tv.er 51 51 7 50
alt.tv.friends 45 47 8 57
alt.tv.homicide 40 41 3 61
alt.tv.seinfeld 80 84 7 90
alt.tv.x-files 235 238 11 211
DAY THREE: 5-28-96...12:05AM
Groups: 48Hrs / SZippo 48Hrs / NEWS2
a.b.doom 496 503 49 54
a.b.fonts 169 172 3 22
a.b.games 2111 2181 119 321
a.b.misc 1429 1585 49 168
a.b.multimedia.erotica 1398 1447 41 84
a.b.p.erotica 1507 1551 125 349
a.b.p.supermodels 389 403 34 98
a.books.stephen.king 182 194 22 213
a.books.tom.clancy 50 51 6 47
alt.guitar 181 186 18 198
a.music.rush 117 123 7 103
a.sex 882 925 94 542
a.s.pictures.female 1066 1091 45 370
alt.tv.er 68 70 10 108
alt.tv.friends 50 57 5 98
alt.tv.homicide 93 95 10 120
alt.tv.seinfeld 146 147 13 210
alt.tv.x-files 373 400 108 538
DAY FOUR: 5-29-96...12:45AM
Groups: 48Hrs / SZippo 48Hrs / NEWS2
a.b.doom 63 185 8 13
a.b.fonts 130 134 8 22
a.b.games 1133 1268 25 243
a.b.misc 848 851 48 301
a.b.multimedia.erotica 612 834 12 58
a.b.p.erotica 637 644 48 354
a.b.p.supermodels 240 245 3 86
a.books.stephen.king 111 114 21 138
a.books.tom.clancy 35 38 21 50
alt.guitar 159 170 59 168
a.music.rush 54 54 15 62
a.sex 267 274 109 287
a.s.pictures.female 398 401 45 235
alt.tv.er 33 37 6 38
alt.tv.friends 51 59 10 42
alt.tv.homicide 57 61 13 51
alt.tv.seinfeld 99 100 37 104
alt.tv.x-files 204 211 51 269
DAY FIVE: 5-30-96...12:40AM
Groups: 48Hrs / SZippo 48Hrs / NEWS2
a.b.doom 41 44 2 149
a.b.fonts 105 110 5 21
a.b.games 1101 1114 41 145
a.b.misc 672 689 15 138
a.b.multimedia.erotica 973 977 7 39
a.b.p.erotica 780 790 51 269
a.b.p.supermodels 236 241 26 60
a.books.stephen.king 161 169 19 83
a.books.tom.clancy 29 29 8 19
alt.guitar 140 147 86 116
a.music.rush 56 59 6 22
a.sex 338 344 110 206
a.s.pictures.female 522 535 54 249
alt.tv.er 52 54 9 40
alt.tv.friends 61 61 15 33
alt.tv.homicide 51 55 22 59
alt.tv.seinfeld 94 97 32 71
alt.tv.x-files 243 252 65 151
CONCLUSIONS:
There you have it. In some ways, these results are even more shocking
than before.
Basically, what it means for my fellow IDT users is that we are only
getting a TINY TRICKLE of the articles available on the Usenet every
day. Moreover, and perhaps even worse, what little we are getting is
woefully out of date. Ever read a news group and wonder why so many
of the articles are a week old from the time you retrieve the headers?
Ever wonder why groups that you KNOW are VERY BUSY on a daily basis
suddenly seem to have no new articles? The results show what is going
on.
The numbers are equally bad for the binaries hierarchy as it is for
the text-only groups, however, the worse culprit by far are the binary
groups.
WHY THIS MATTERS:
It matters because we are basically paying good money for a basic INet
function and getting next to nothing in return. It matters because
IDT is a tremendous ISP, one growing every day. It matters because, I
believe, we are all being cheated.
I don't expect IDT to offer a Usenet service that rivals Super Zippo.
That would be unreasonable and unfair. What I do expect is a DECENT
and ACCEPTABLE Usenet service....if we got half or even one-third of
the articles that Super Zippo provides on a daily basis, I would be
pretty happy. But this inexcusable level of Usenet "service" is just
that...inexcusable.
Why don't I just shut up and leave IDT? Simply because, aside from
this ridiculous Usenet service, I am basically pretty happy with IDT,
warts and all. I connect at a high enough speed often enough that I
can't complain. But I simply find this Usenet situation intolerable.
It sticks in my craw.
FINAL WORDS:
COMPLAIN...COMPLAIN...COMPLAIN!!!!
Maybe, just maybe, if we all yell and scream loud enough, the IDT
system admins will get their heads out of their asses and DO
SOMETHING! After all, we DID manage to get IDT to increase the number
of Usenet groups available by making enough noise.
I for one am tired of empty promises and procrastination.
Aren't you?
Thanks for listening to me vent.
PEACE...
--
<===================================================>
MARIUS...
*****MAR...@SOHO.IOS.COM******
AKA...
An AOLer With a Clue [NO ME TOOs]
********MARI...@AOL.COM*********
"Whatever happened to 'Trust no one' Mulder?"
"Oh, I changed it to 'Trust everyone'...I didn't tell you?"
COLONY...2.16
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn't exist."
Verbal Kent: THE USUAL SUSPECTS
<===================================================>
Mr. Sam
In <31ae8339...@NEWS2.IOS.COM>, mar...@soho.ios.com (MARIUS) wrote:
[...]
And that's only half of the story. IDT's Usenet servers are very slow. I
believe the problem is not with the actual servers themselves, but with the
over-capacity network infrastructure.
I signed up for a trial subscription with another ISP. Downloads from their
Usenet server is much, much faster. I got one of those newfangled modems that
has a rough readout of line utilization. When I'm downloading headers, both
servers go at about the same rate. However, if you attempt to download
anything over a few hundred headers, chances are that IDT's server will stop
dead in its tracks for at least two-three minutes, before starting back up
again. Typical case of lost packets being dropped on an overloaded network.
I've been running netstat periodically on one of IDT's user servers recently.
The server's network adapter reports an average of 150-200 collisions per
second.
--
Mr. Sam: member, talk.politics.misc troll patrol
channel operator, #Sci-Fi - Undernet IRC sci-fi/fantasy channel
http://www.cyberstorm.com/~rockd/sci-fi.html
MARIUS
On Fri, 31 May 1996 16:45:43 GMT, mr...@soho.ios.com (Mr. Sam) wrote:
<snipped>
=>And that's only half of the story. IDT's Usenet servers are very
slow. I
=>believe the problem is not with the actual servers themselves, but
with the
=>over-capacity network infrastructure.
=>
Mr. Sam:
Yes, I left out teh actual, physial problems with the servers because
I am simply not well-informed enough to make those kind of
observations/conclusions.
Glad that you have jumped right in to assist.
Think we'll get anywhere?
Alexander Wu
as sam and marius can tell by my address on haven, they know that i've
been on this ISP even LONGER than them, since feb 1995 to be exact. i can
tell you my experience with IDT has been pretty bad all around although
things have improved. (yeah it was WORSE during earlier times.)
to make a long story short, why am i still here? for 15 bucks, i connect
in one or two tries at my 14.4 modem pretty reliably. and e-mail works
although the slowdowns on the haven machine gets pretty excrutiating at
times. this is despite the fact that i'm a pretty basic *shell* user. yes.
i still use trn, tin, elm and lynx.
in anycase, i'd like to throw my support for marius and what he's been
doing. i too feel that USENET is a *BASIC* ISP service. ranking basic
service in order: (1) e-mail (i had problems with this, but it was fixed
and has been working great since july 95.) (2) USENET (which has *never*
worked correctly since the year i've been here.) and (3) being able to
DOWNLOAD stuff at a reasonable amount of time. (this has been on and off
for the past year, sometimes working perfectly, sometimes just kicking me
off because of so many bad CRC packets)
my gut feeling is that IDT will not change things much. there were
recently two articles: one on IDT in the village voice and another in the
WSJ concerning ISPs in general. the impression i got from the articles
when IDT's founder Jonason was confronted with reports of IDT customer
dissatisfaction was that he's not even aware of what's going on "in the
trenches." he basically wrote off complaints as a small minority of
customers proportionate to percentages in other ISPs. (which the article
said was not true.) in any case, i forget which one said this, but one
said that IDT averages 1,000 new subscirbers a day. that's more than
enough to replace those customers that drop IDT in the same time.
so for now, i'm just sucking things up and am thankful that e-mail works.
i'm also hoping that the complaints to the BBB will bare fruit. one of
the articles reported that the DA in more than one state was
investigating IDT for fraud although IDT says they are unaware of any
investigations being conducted by the DAs.
keep up the good work marius.
_
_ _| |___ _ _
/ _` | / -_| \/ /
\__,_|_\___/_/\_\
a...@haven.ios.com
MARIUS
On Fri, 31 May 1996 05:32:03 GMT, mar...@soho.ios.com (MARIUS) wrote:
<my own article snipped>
Here is an interesting addenum to the ridiculous Usenet problems at
IDT. Forgot to include it in my header retrieval test. This,
combined with the laughable Usenet, makes all us IDT users very
unhappy. And should be fair warning to all who are considering IDT as
their ISP.
TIMED ARTICLE RETRIEVAL TEST:
Anyway, here are the results of the timed binary retrieval test. The
results should speak for themselves, but unfortunately, I do not
possess the technical wherewithal to give them meaning. That, my
friend, I leave up to you.
TEST 1....CONNECTION AT 24000
File name # of Lines Time [NEWS2] Time [SZippo]
ginrico4.jpg 2106 1'20"53 58"60
clsx10.jpg 2480 1'50"86 1'01"03
TEST 2...CONNECTION AT 26400
File name # of Lines Time [NEWS2] Time [SZippo]
bj0054.jpg 3878 3'19"34 1'24"11
x-ray!.jpg 4828 5'19"71 1'44"59
rfmap1.zip 11055 10'20"61 4'42"93
Scott Roberts
> In <31ae8339...@NEWS2.IOS.COM>, mar...@soho.ios.com (MARIUS) wrote:
>
> [...]
[snippets of Yet Another Disgruntled IDT User]
"Now we see the idiocy inherent in the system."
This doesn't just go back MONTHS...it goes back over the course of an
ENTIRE YEAR. I know; I worked there.
Please, folks. For your own peace of mind: go somewhere else.
You aren't going to get satisfaction from IDT.
Gordon Sande
Exactly!
The major problem these guys have is crowd control, so little things like
actually delivering service come a poor second. I switched from CERFnet
over 800 lines to IDT/IOS on a local call and found all sorts of line and
modem trouble that was not there before. (I had a courtesy account at CERFnet
which was eventually cancelled and I could not get them to call me back to
tell me how to pay them. It also was not clear that I would keep my e-mail
address. An ISP with crowd contol problems that at least provided service.)
On the couple of occassions I tried to get through to IDT/IOS tech support,
I hung up after an hour of waiting. Pity the poor folks who have to do it long
distance. I jokingly say that IDT/IOS has an occassional good day by accident.
The symptoms are that they do not really know what their problems are, and
do not have any diagnostics to measure their current state of problem level.
When things go from just bad to really lousy they clean up somewhat and then
creep back to being really lousy. I dial in part way down a hunt sequence
to skip the bad modems, with moderate luck. When the number I had been using
went bad, it stayed as a Ring-No Answer for more than two weeks before being
cleared. I call the Hackensack modem bank. IDT/IOS home base is Hackensack!
Hate to think what the remote modem banks get for service.
If they were inside a company, the YELLing level would be so high that things
would get fixed. But that would be a plush operation by constrast.
The only merit these guys have is that I now have a known e-mail address. There
are more than a few days when I think that I will switch to a shell only
account, plug in a forwarding file and use another service. If they have a
particularly bad patch they may even cause me to do it, instead of just
thinking about it. NOT a positive recommendation.
Gordon Sande
sa...@haven.ios.com
(When I started haven was basically empty, so I have seen it all.)