ZEN retention times

zen seems to be going down the pan with binary retention
mps posted at 0800 today have now dropped off the server

have been getting error messages when trying to download
after xmas i will be leaving them
any recomendations as to a provider with a reasonable retention
and preforably with a monthly contract would be welcome

Archie

You are not going to find one, ISPS do not carry good NNTP servers because
they cost a damn sight more than the amount of your subs cover if you want
decent then go with the likes of astraweb which costs me $10 or £7 a month
for as much as I want, and dont forget that there is much more to an ISP
than news.

"Archie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
zen seems to be going down the pan with binary retention
mps posted at 0800 today have now dropped off the server

have been getting error messages when trying to download
after xmas i will be leaving them
any recomendations as to a provider with a reasonable retention
and preforably with a monthly contract would be welcome

Archie

"Archie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> zen seems to be going down the pan with binary retention
> mps posted at 0800 today have now dropped off the server
>
> have been getting error messages when trying to download
> after xmas i will be leaving them
> any recomendations as to a provider with a reasonable retention
> and preforably with a monthly contract would be welcome

PlusNet have made some improvements fairly recently to their Usenet platform
which has definitely increased retention.

The trouble is the completion is poor, currently a reasonable guesstimate
would be around 60-70% complete on binaries.

However, they are continuing to roll-out improvements, and are claiming to
be equal to or better than all other UK ISPs by some time in March 2004
regarding Usenet binaries.

__________________________________________________ ______
Quote from PlusNet, 9th December:

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.
__________________________________________________ ________

I have been with them for approximately 17-18 months and so far they have
proved to be an excellent ISP.

I would definitely recomend them, and not only because they offer a discount
scheme to people who recommend others!!

(However, should you wish to sign up with them, I could provide you with my
details so you could use me as a referrer which would earn me a small
discount off my subscription).

You can also recommend others and receive a discount yourself for each
referral.

One word of advice though, downloading of binaries and P2P is blocked if you
sign up for the £18.99 pm account.

Rob