What are PlusNet like for binaries

I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they are
like for binaries newsgroups, retention, missed posts etc are an issue with
Zen so would like new ISP to have a 48 hour retention period if possible and
be a bit more reliable then Zen have been over the last year.

"John" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:c0jsov$16dr6i$(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they are
> like for binaries newsgroups, retention, missed posts etc are an issue
with
> Zen so would like new ISP to have a 48 hour retention period if possible
and
> be a bit more reliable then Zen have been over the last year.

Completion is presently running at about 25% , but is hopefully about to
increase to a much more impressive figure.

Pasted below is an announcement made by PlusNet on 9th December 2003.
----------------------------------------------------------
We would like to bring you up to date with our current progress and
plans for our Usenet (Newsgroups) service.

We are aware that, over the last few months, the service has
deteriorated somewhat, as has been documented in the service status
section of our portal. We recently took temporary measures to resolve a
problem whereby delays were being experienced when posting new articles.
The original problem was caused by the failure of our primary news
server following a storage upgrade. As a result of the growth in demand
for our Usenet service, primarily from heavy users of the ADSL service,
the secondary server alone could not cope. The solution identified
(involving the use of a proxy server) has resulted in a number of
unforeseen issues, including a latency when viewing articles and
downloading messages. We are now in a position where both Usenet servers
are fully functional and during this week we will be moving back to our
original two server configuration. This should resolve the current
issues with regard to unresponsiveness of the server.

What has now become apparent is that our existing Usenet platform is no
longer capable of supporting the demands placed upon it. This is both as
a result of the significant increase in our Broadband userbase and also
because Usenet itself has continued to grow exponentially. A 'good'
binary newsfeed now requires at least 700GB of new data per day. This
data must be collected and stored by our news platform. The limitations
of our current Usenet platform mean we cannot currently take this amount
of news.

We can now announce that a project is underway to overhaul our current
Usenet platform. This will include the installation of higher
specification equipment and additional servers. We will also be
replacing the current Usenet server software (which we have used,
without change, for some 5 years) with a newer, much more efficient,
software solution. Work has already started on building the new Usenet
platform and the estimated completion date for this is February 2004.
Once the installation is completed, it will take a further month for the
news-servers to collect complete article listings and as such our target
date for launch of the new Usenet platform is March 2004. We believe our
target will be easily achievable and work is already well underway, with
much of the required equipment, ordered specifically for the overhaul,
having been delivered already.

Once the new platform is operational, we expect to offer a vastly
improved Usenet service. While, as we have stated before, we do not aim
to compete with the premium subscription based Usenet providers, we are
confident that following the overhaul we will be able to offer a
newsgroup service which is as good as, if not better than, any other
provided by a UK ISP.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Rob

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:15:10 -0000, "John" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they are
>like for binaries newsgroups

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Of all the ISPs I've used, and that's quite a few, Plusnet is, without
doubt, the worst I have ever come across when it comes to Usenet &
binaries.

Apparently, they're going to upgrade their newsserver soon so that
there are only 98% incompletes and not 99% like there currently is

Great in every other respect though.

Would you consider 3rd party news feed server?
Such as
Forte APN http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php
SuperNews http://www.supernews.com/
UseNetServer http://www.usenetserver.com/

That should be more reliable than those usenet server offered by ISPs.

I am using Forte APN 2GB plan. It is cheap and the retention seems great.
But I am not a binary downloader and so I am just award of the text retention. Maybe you can have a look on it first.

John said the following:

> I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they are
> like for binaries newsgroups, retention, missed posts etc are an issue with
> Zen so would like new ISP to have a 48 hour retention period if possible and
> be a bit more reliable then Zen have been over the last year.
>
>

--
Firefox, probably the best browser in this world

"Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:15:10 -0000, "John" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they
are
> >like for binaries newsgroups
>
> Hahahahahahahahahaha!
>

You could say that for all uk isp's. At least plusnet are promising to
improve, which is more than most are doing.

IMO anyone serious about binaries has to have a "premium" server anyway.
Choose your ISP, or stay with it, and have e.g. usenetserver for 40 dollars
a quarter (? about a tenner a month?) with 22 days retention, well over 90%
completion & *unlimited* downloads - speed capped at 2Mbps, admittedly, not
that *that* limitation would affect many of us here in the UK.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
says...
> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:15:10 -0000, "John" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they are
> >like for binaries newsgroups
>
> Hahahahahahahahahaha!
>
> Of all the ISPs I've used, and that's quite a few, Plusnet is, without
> doubt, the worst I have ever come across when it comes to Usenet &
> binaries.
>
> Apparently, they're going to upgrade their newsserver soon so that
> there are only 98% incompletes and not 99% like there currently is
>
> Great in every other respect though.
>
Oh i dont know, im on enta net 2mb adsl line and there are NO binaries

F F Skitty <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> "Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:15:10 -0000, "John" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they
> are
>> >like for binaries newsgroups
>>
>> Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Demon have them beat (last I checked)

> You could say that for all uk isp's. At least plusnet are promising to
> improve, which is more than most are doing.
>
> IMO anyone serious about binaries has to have a "premium" server anyway.
> Choose your ISP, or stay with it, and have e.g. usenetserver for 40 dollars
> a quarter (? about a tenner a month?) with 22 days retention, well over 90%
> completion & *unlimited* downloads - speed capped at 2Mbps, admittedly, not
> that *that* limitation would affect many of us here in the UK.

Using modern news software that supports multiple servers, you can leverage
plusnets (or whoevers servers) to reduce the amount of news you download
from a third party server, which may reduce the tarrif paid to them.

In message <ThqXb.3356$(E-Mail Removed)>, Ian Stirling
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>
>Demon have them beat (last I checked)
>
>
>Using modern news software that supports multiple servers, you can leverage
>plusnets (or whoevers servers) to reduce the amount of news you download
>from a third party server, which may reduce the tarrif paid to them.
>

That's interesting. Having recently changed my Demon account to a
broadband one, I've been checking out their binary group feed after
about a six year (or more!) gap. While back then I found the service
excellent, nowadays, many (most) multipart postings are incomplete, but
the download speed is fine. I'd consider paying a small fee to someone
like forte or supernews to 'mop up' the few missing parts.

Any pointers as to which newsreaders do this and how difficult is it to
set up?

TIA

Gareth.
--
__________________________________________________
Personal email for Gareth Jones can be sent to:
'usenet4gareth' followed by an at symbol
followed by 'uk2' followed by a dot
followed by 'net'
__________________________________________________

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:34:37 -0000, "F F Skitty" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"Jim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:15:10 -0000, "John" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm considering moving from Zen to PlusNet but was wondering what they
>are
>> >like for binaries newsgroups
>>
>> Hahahahahahahahahaha!
>>
>
>You could say that for all uk isp's. At least plusnet are promising to
>improve, which is more than most are doing.
>
>IMO anyone serious about binaries has to have a "premium" server anyway.
>Choose your ISP, or stay with it, and have e.g. usenetserver for 40 dollars
>a quarter (? about a tenner a month?) with 22 days retention, well over 90%
>completion & *unlimited* downloads - speed capped at 2Mbps, admittedly, not
>that *that* limitation would affect many of us here in the UK.
>

I'll second that. usenetserver are reasonably priced, blindingly fast
(compared to pipex's news servers) and have a good completion
rate and retention time. very happy with them.

Gareth Jones <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> In message <ThqXb.3356$(E-Mail Removed)>, Ian Stirling
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>>
>>Demon have them beat (last I checked)
>>
>>
>>Using modern news software that supports multiple servers, you can leverage
>>plusnets (or whoevers servers) to reduce the amount of news you download
>>from a third party server, which may reduce the tarrif paid to them.
>>
>
> That's interesting. Having recently changed my Demon account to a
> broadband one, I've been checking out their binary group feed after
> about a six year (or more!) gap. While back then I found the service
> excellent, nowadays, many (most) multipart postings are incomplete, but
> the download speed is fine. I'd consider paying a small fee to someone
> like forte or supernews to 'mop up' the few missing parts.
>
> Any pointers as to which newsreaders do this and how difficult is it to
> set up?

Generally binary ones.
I don't know of any names, as I use a custom one to do my downloading.
I don't have easy access to demons servers anymore (I have to find an
analog modem). What is the number of articles missing in a typical
40-60 part post in a movie group?
(say alt.binaries.multimedia.buffy-v-slayer for a relatively small group)

Searching google for
"binary news" "multiple newsserver"
seems to result in quite a lot of hits.