Should NNTP access be unbundled?

I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I suspect
it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or would regular
users be better off having decent access as an option from their ISP? Are we
being unfairly subsidised by other users for what's a pretty poor service
anyhow? A look at my header will show I'm using individual.de which is fine
for non-binaries.

Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by an
appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?

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Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I suspect
> it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or would regular
> users be better off having decent access as an option from their ISP? Are we
> being unfairly subsidised by other users for what's a pretty poor service
> anyhow? A look at my header will show I'm using individual.de which is fine
> for non-binaries.
>
> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by an
> appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?

If you're talking about the price of nntp access, for binaries, then the
best thing for all the other users is to turn it off, and block access
to external news-servers.

Binary news servers are probably not the major expense.
If 1000 users of plusnet use the news servers to the limits, that's
15GB/month*1000.
Or several thousand pounds per month. (from costs from BT to move the data
to the users(not applicable to some services like bulldog who use LLU or
cable operators)

A text newsserver is nearly free to run, and can be set up by almost anyone
with a semblance of a clue.
A binary newsserver needs terabytes of fast disks, and either lots of money
thrown at it, or quite skilled people.

Having said this, one of the reasons I have stayed with plusnet is the
newsserver.
With the introduction of the cap, I'm unsure what I'll do in the future.
However, I think I'll have to wait for another 3 months or so, to see
how the ISP market settles out.

Several ISPs have said that they are throttling their news-server, and
limiting users access to it, and several others have introduced caps on
total traffic.
I don't expect that Tiscalis recent announcemnt of 30GB caps on total traffic
will be the last.

"Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
suspect
> it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or would regular
> users be better off having decent access as an option from their ISP? Are
we
> being unfairly subsidised by other users for what's a pretty poor service
> anyhow? A look at my header will show I'm using individual.de which is
fine
> for non-binaries.
>
> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by an
> appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?

Usenet costs very little to run in comparison with any other aspect of
providing a broadband service. If you want decent access as an option, go to
a decent ISP. Usenet won't be a factor in decent access as long as your ISP
has plenty of capacity for both usenet and end-user access.

Regards
Andrew


--
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Thus spake Ian Stirling:
> Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
>> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
>> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
>> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
>> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
>> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
>>
>> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
>> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
>
> If you're talking about the price of nntp access, for binaries, then
> the best thing for all the other users is to turn it off, and block
> access to external news-servers.

Why would they want to bar external access - surely that's a different
issue?

> Binary news servers are probably not the major expense.
> If 1000 users of plusnet use the news servers to the limits, that's
> 15GB/month*1000.
> Or several thousand pounds per month. (from costs from BT to move the
> data to the users(not applicable to some services like bulldog who
> use LLU or cable operators)

Certainly not the major expense but an overhead used by a minority?

> A text newsserver is nearly free to run, and can be set up by almost
> anyone with a semblance of a clue.
> A binary newsserver needs terabytes of fast disks, and either lots of
> money thrown at it, or quite skilled people.

Exactly.

> Having said this, one of the reasons I have stayed with plusnet is the
> newsserver.
> With the introduction of the cap, I'm unsure what I'll do in the
> future. However, I think I'll have to wait for another 3 months or
> so, to see
> how the ISP market settles out.

I'm one of the Nildram users who /didn't/ migrate to PN! Some who did, then
returned rather quietly. I'm also someone who laughed heartily when hearing
about PN's "capping". What PN appeared to have not done was warn offending
customers of their intentions in a timely manner.

> Several ISPs have said that they are throttling their news-server, and
> limiting users access to it, and several others have introduced caps
> on total traffic.
> I don't expect that Tiscalis recent announcemnt of 30GB caps on total
> traffic will be the last.

ISPs need to be upfront when stating that their service is uncapped then
hiding behind "fair usage" clauses which contradict what many people find
"uncapped" to mean. To me, it doesn't mean a leased line - ADSL is a
contended service without QOS guarantees!

What's wrong with providers pricing their products with varying caps from
PAYG 1G up to ~200GBs or more per month? IMO, capping to some degree is
inevitable - the industry just needs to be honest about it.

--
Thank people in advance? Thanking or cursing them afterwards at least
gives some feedback!

Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Thus spake Ian Stirling:
>> Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
>>> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
>>> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
>>> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
>>> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
>>> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
>>>
>>> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
>>> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
>>
>> If you're talking about the price of nntp access, for binaries, then
>> the best thing for all the other users is to turn it off, and block
>> access to external news-servers.
>
> Why would they want to bar external access - surely that's a different
> issue?

Because if you turn of the existing binary server, most of the users
will simply put down $10.99/month or whatever, and get access to an
external one, so you don't save the bandwidth cost.
<Snip>
>> Having said this, one of the reasons I have stayed with plusnet is the
>> newsserver.
>> With the introduction of the cap, I'm unsure what I'll do in the
>> future. However, I think I'll have to wait for another 3 months or
>> so, to see
>> how the ISP market settles out.
>
> I'm one of the Nildram users who /didn't/ migrate to PN! Some who did, then
> returned rather quietly. I'm also someone who laughed heartily when hearing
> about PN's "capping". What PN appeared to have not done was warn offending
> customers of their intentions in a timely manner.

PN have not (as of yet) introduced capping, and we don't know what levels
it will be set at.
>
>> Several ISPs have said that they are throttling their news-server, and
>> limiting users access to it, and several others have introduced caps
>> on total traffic.
>> I don't expect that Tiscalis recent announcemnt of 30GB caps on total
>> traffic will be the last.
>
> ISPs need to be upfront when stating that their service is uncapped then
> hiding behind "fair usage" clauses which contradict what many people find
> "uncapped" to mean. To me, it doesn't mean a leased line - ADSL is a
> contended service without QOS guarantees!
>
> What's wrong with providers pricing their products with varying caps from
> PAYG 1G up to ~200GBs or more per month? IMO, capping to some degree is
> inevitable - the industry just needs to be honest about it.

Because to not cross subsidise the 200GBs accounts, they need to be priced
at a level at which few users would pay, probably over 100 quid a month.

Thus spake Andrew Crane:
> "Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
>> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
>> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
>> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
>> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
>> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
>>
>> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
>> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
>
> Usenet costs very little to run in comparison with any other aspect of
> providing a broadband service. If you want decent access as an
> option, go to a decent ISP. Usenet won't be a factor in decent access
> as long as your ISP has plenty of capacity for both usenet and
> end-user access.
>
Even binary news provision? Nildram don't seem to think so:
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthre...o=#Post1624285
same link:
http://tinyurl.com/5vyv9
I rarely access binary groups so individual.de is fine for me & free. The
point is the costs seem to be significant enough for such a few number of
customers who use it. I'm certainly not against some degree of cross
financing, I'm not advocating toll roads or purchasing health care at the
point of need here.

Every provider I'm been with (Dircon, Tele2 & Nildram) have provided some
degree of useable binary access. Some providers don't even have pop3.

--
Thank people in advance? Thanking or cursing them afterwards at least
gives some feedback!

"Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thus spake Andrew Crane:
> > "Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> > news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
> >> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
> >> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
> >> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
> >> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
> >> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
> >>
> >> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
> >> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
> >
> > Usenet costs very little to run in comparison with any other aspect of
> > providing a broadband service. If you want decent access as an
> > option, go to a decent ISP. Usenet won't be a factor in decent access
> > as long as your ISP has plenty of capacity for both usenet and
> > end-user access.
> >
> Even binary news provision? Nildram don't seem to think so:

It depends on how long you hold it for and how much you take. We for
instance reserve about 100GBytes for binaries and keep them for as long as
it takes to write 100GBytes (ie, after we get 100GBytes we start back at the
beginning of that 100GByte space). Text stuff we keep much longer and
UK-related stuff stays live for months.

We don't take warez and binaries over 2.5Mbytes so there's not too much of a
strain on resources.

Regards
Andrew

Thus spake Andrew Crane:
> "Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Thus spake Andrew Crane:
>>> "Paul Busby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
>>>> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
>>>> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
>>>> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
>>>> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
>>>> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
>>>>
>>>> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
>>>> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
>>>
>>> Usenet costs very little to run in comparison with any other aspect
>>> of providing a broadband service. If you want decent access as an
>>> option, go to a decent ISP. Usenet won't be a factor in decent
>>> access as long as your ISP has plenty of capacity for both usenet
>>> and end-user access.
>>>
>> Even binary news provision? Nildram don't seem to think so:
>
> It depends on how long you hold it for and how much you take. We for
> instance reserve about 100GBytes for binaries and keep them for as
> long as it takes to write 100GBytes (ie, after we get 100GBytes we
> start back at the beginning of that 100GByte space). Text stuff we
> keep much longer and UK-related stuff stays live for months.
>
> We don't take warez and binaries over 2.5Mbytes so there's not too
> much of a strain on resources.

The problem with Nildram's in-house NNTP service was that retention hung
around 3 days with pretty poor completion. Now they are in trouble for users
having to login to Giganews with their Nildram login & password rather than
a dedicated one - authentication done at Giganews' end, not Nildram's.
100GBs sounds tiny to me. Good luck with your new 1Mb service.

--
Thank people in advance? Thanking or cursing them afterwards at least
gives some feedback!

Thus spake Ian Stirling:
<Snipped>
>> Why would they want to bar external access - surely that's a
>> different issue?
>
> Because if you turn of the existing binary server, most of the users
> will simply put down $10.99/month or whatever, and get access to an
> external one, so you don't save the bandwidth cost.

I understand this now - thought you meant end-users barring external
access - I'm blaming it on having flu

<Snipped>
>> What's wrong with providers pricing their products with varying caps
>> from PAYG 1G up to ~200GBs or more per month? IMO, capping to some
>> degree is inevitable - the industry just needs to be honest about it.
>
> Because to not cross subsidise the 200GBs accounts, they need to be
> priced at a level at which few users would pay, probably over 100
> quid a month.

I'd be happy with some cross subsidy but do wonder about the legality or
necessity of d/l'ing over ~200GB/m. I'd suspect a large percentage doesn't
even get read/viewed/listened to unless they really are that sad. As for
revealing the true costs - so be it. Anyway, I'm probably subsidising
heavier users less than most.

Perhaps what's needed is some ISP's to appeal to gamers in particular.
Trying to cater for heavy users is a non-starter, as you point out.

--
Thank people in advance? Thanking or cursing them afterwards at least
gives some feedback!

On 08 Feb 2005 12:42:34 GMT, Ian Stirling <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Thus spake Ian Stirling:
>>> Paul Busby <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>>> I don't know what the percentage of internet users access NGs but I
>>>> suspect it's under 10%. Is it worth bundling this in the price or
>>>> would regular users be better off having decent access as an option
>>>> from their ISP? Are we being unfairly subsidised by other users for
>>>> what's a pretty poor service anyhow? A look at my header will show
>>>> I'm using individual.de which is fine for non-binaries.
>>>>
>>>> Would it be viable for providers to drop their non-bundled price by
>>>> an appreciable amount & not sustain a drop in margins?
>>>
>>> If you're talking about the price of nntp access, for binaries, then
>>> the best thing for all the other users is to turn it off, and block
>>> access to external news-servers.
>>
>> Why would they want to bar external access - surely that's a different
>> issue?
>
>Because if you turn of the existing binary server, most of the users
>will simply put down $10.99/month or whatever, and get access to an
>external one, so you don't save the bandwidth cost.

Then why target just NNTP services? What about the many other types of
file download and streaming services that take up just as much
bandwidth? You may as well just cap the monthly data limit altogether
if that's the objective.

Chris