Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I agree with you. It is not smart to subscribe to unknown providers for an year in order to save a few quids. You may loose more in the end. Monthly paiment is acceptable as trial period. Who knows, maybe ntls server will be back in a month? :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I suspect the NTL binaries will return when the cap starts this month.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

I've seen quite a few bad astraweb reviews, off the top of my head i can remember one rating was 2/5. I would use ntls binaries, but they don't seem to have the lossless audio groups :/

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

They had 3.
But who cares if they do not work anyway? :(

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Im having no real probs with astraweb, i get the occasional NOT ON SERVER but if it retries its there and downbloads, the error is maybe cos i have 8 connects (i need all 8 to get the speed!)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

astranews is great for me miles better than my mates unlimited claranews conenction that we share

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Like many things (cars, clothes etc.), everyone seems to like differant news providers, some people want blinding speeds and will pay anything for this, some want 30 days retention, some want 100% completion, etc. I was very happy with NTL, and Astraweb does seem fine, the problem I mentioned earlier can be worked around, id be happiest with NTL as it was before this started, but short of that, astraweb suits me (i do get more binaries anyhow).

PS to reply to an earlier post; NTL had a lossless newsgroup (or possibly 2), I used to get pink floyd bootlegs from them (and then converted then to MP3).

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

OK. I have just subsribed to astraweb.
Let's see how good they are!

NTL had 3 groups with lossless
one apes only, one with both apes and flacs and there was another one I think. I don't remember the names because I didn't use them.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

heres some astraweb hints i have to share (from experiance so far), this is for the budget $10 option, may be differant for other options.

Leech on as many connects as u can, as the more u use the more speed u seem to get (unlike some news servers).

If you start getting silly errors (NOT ON SERVER, etc) reduce the number of connects, i find dropping to 6 fixes it, this happens at peak times.

If doing a INCREMENTAL UPDATE (or FULL), you may also get strange errors, 6 connects seems to be best rather than 8.

On any errors, the file is probably there, just retry!

This may make it sound like astraweb is cr*p, its not, like anything its a case of learning to use it. Weve sacrificed in price so some small probs are to be expected. I have got everything ive tagged, everything ive wanted is complete too (so far), so i have no real gripes for the price.

hope this helps :)

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Is there any update on this issue now? Just tried a group I use here and it has nothing for the past 6 days, when I know for a fact there has been stuff posted there.....

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Seems like NTL don't know how to fix the problem, or maybe they just don't want to fix it in the hope that people will eventually give up complaining. Or maybe they actually want people to move to other ISPs?

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Just a small report on astraweb.
I don't see any difference in the service. I mean it not worse than NTL.
It has got some 2500 more groups. I use only 2 connection at time and they fill promised 600k completely. No broken parts. Downloaded staff 1 and 2 weeks old. No problem at all.
If NTL repairs their server I will return to it because it is for free :) Otherwise I stay with astraweb and I don't know why some people say that astraweb is bad.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

i have not been able to download off grabit and other servers for a few days now keeps saying article not on server is ntl now playing god as to what we can download now

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Still stuffed, very few posts getting through and all are incomplete.
Tried CS and they still insist that there is no problem.

Re: [merged] binary newsgroups on NTL
 

Why doesn't that surprise me? Maybe its because that's exactly the same as I experenced too.

This issue has been ongoing for nearly a fortnight now and there's still no mention of it on the service status page, and trying to explain that there IS a problem to the monkeys at CS is like talking to a brick wall. In fact - you'd probably get more sense out of a brick wall.

Do NTL actually have any staff left these days who know what they are doing?