Astraweb
 

Hey all,

New to the boards, Anybody on VM use Astraweb for newsgroups, Used them on and off for years but been getting very erratic speeds since xmas. This service used to max out my 20mb constantly but now it can flucuate anywhere between 1mb to 19mb. Seems bad during the day, Almost as if i am being traffic shaped straight away, I know you can get traffic shaped if you shift 6gb data and it takes you down to 5mb but this is really erratic.

All the best
Rich

Re: Astraweb
 

Hi Rich, i've been using newsgroups for years, and Astraweb for about 4 years, i had enough of the erratic speeds from them the last couple of months and i'm on 50mb b/b, i now use giganews, costs more but always maxes out my connection

Re: Astraweb
 

ive had poor speeds with older files and a hell of a lot of their older (200 day plus) files are busted up quite a bit

Mind you its still cheap and I would still recommend them

Re: Astraweb
 

Ive been getting erratic speeds with them, some days ive hardly been able to get 1mb, think it must be a problem server side though as most of the time i can max out my 20mb connection.
They are cheap and i can cope with it being down for the odd day or so.

Re: Astraweb
 

Thanks for the reply peeps, im beginning to think its Astraweb, They normally do max out my 20mb connection usually with 20 concurrent connections and max speed is generally 2300kbps.

Re: Astraweb
 

I see supernews are doing a similar price as Astra - 99c more.

I agree with zing regarding files 200+ days old. A right old mess trying to leech them.

Re: Astraweb
 

im going to test a new provider this evening to see if it is astraweb or VM.

Re: Astraweb
 

Never had a problem with Atraweb even for 300+day files.. well worth the $11 a month

Re: Astraweb
 

Astraweb have been fubar'd for me for a couple of days now. I've tried all their servers and SSL. Time out's and incomplete files, I can just about get a connection at the moment. Anything from 15k to 300k on a 10mb line. Something's obviously not right their end.

:edit:In fact SSL won't even connect at all now.

Re: Astraweb
 

It was fine for me last night and this afternoon. I think all this talk of "deep packet inspection" that VM are implementing may be the culprit.

Re: Astraweb
 

Crikey. That sounds ominous.

Re: Astraweb
 

That was talked about on the newsbin forums, I thought though it was mentioned that the data aquired was from an optical tap and hence couldn't interfere with the original data at all

Re: Astraweb
 

No problems here on SSL and getting a steady 20mbit.

Re: Astraweb
 

They haven't implemented any traffic shaping measures.

Re: Astraweb
 

Just got a couple of old linux ISO's off it (250days old) never missed a beat

Re: Astraweb
 

All good for me too, maxes out mine with 10 connections SSL

Re: Astraweb
 

You still on 10Mb?? Never needed more than 6 on the EU servers, only ever needed 10 on the US servers

Re: Astraweb
 

Hi there I’m new here also :)

I have just read a few comments on here so I thought I would like to let you know of a few things I have come across last December.

I have put a few friends of mine on Newsgroups and have had a few tell me there speeds have gone terrible too, 2 are on Newshosting and 1 on Giganews ... they are all on Virgin for their ISP the Newshosting problem was solved when I told them to change their port to 3128 but the Giganews problem was not solved until he signed up to the SSL package (which is what I am on at the moment and Virgin ISP).

So that in my eyes, is surely Virgin throttling Newsgroups, I don’t know why SSL is working as I have been on that for years and never have been throttled (not including the 5mb rubbish)

Re: Astraweb
 

I hope you've got thick skin mate..

Re: Astraweb
 

Astraweb, 50mb, 10 connections. Never misses a beat on the eu server. constantly maxes out even on older files. As Kymmy said earlier, for $11 a month i'm happy. :cool:

Re: Astraweb
 

And does their SSL service use a non standard port also?

Re: Astraweb
 

It's not throttling. Even if it were SSL would be an exercise is futility.

'Oh look we have customers opening 10 SSL connections to europe.news.astraweb.com - well that's ok we'll throttle NNTP but we'll leave those 50Mbps SSL connections alone, clearly not NNTP riding over SSL' ;)

EDIT: Just to show how fast and easy this would be, Giganews have this IP range:

Giganews, Inc. GIGAN-CIDR1 (NET-216-196-96-0-2)
216.196.96.0 - 216.196.111.255

So just shape everything there apart from the Giganews speedtest (Just allow the first say 10MB to go full speed and customer will get a realistic speed test)

Astraweb nearly as easy.

netnum: 91.208.207.0 - 91.208.207.255
netname: Searchtech
descr: Searchtech Limited

inetnum: 193.202.122.0 - 193.202.122.255
netname: searchtec-ams
descr: Searchtec


207.246.207.0/24
215.151.153.0/24

Re: Astraweb
 

Newshosting also uses 563 for their SSL my point was more aimed at that there standard ports: 119, 23, 25 and 80 did not go above dial up speed on virgin, except for when they chose port 3128

Giganews only lets you use ports 23, 80 and port 119 on the lower package and was also only getting slow speeds until he chose port 563

Re: Astraweb
 

The cynic would state that it is traffic shaping by VM, on the other hand the cynic could also say its a sneaky ploy by the news hosts to get you onto a more profitable package. :)

Re: Astraweb
 

It's extremely unlike that VM would shape traffic by port and even if they did they wouldn't rate shape port 80. If there's shaping it's not VM doing it.

Re: Astraweb
 

Strange thing for me is that using SSL connections on astraweb sometimes don't work in grabit, but at the same time work fine in Newsbin pro. And that is using the same servers and port.

Re: Astraweb
 

Astraweb seems to be working for me ok, i get the occasional drop out, but nothing annoying, speeds can fluctuate a little, i find running the servers through Alt Binz as secondary to the VM servers (for files out of the 7 day period) that speeds are not as fast configuring to just use the Astraweb servers.

Havent been hitting it hard alst few weeks though

and i did not go for the $11 a month deal, works out better for me to get a pre-paid package, and then use the VM servers for newer stuff, only relying on the Astraweb ones for older, and yes i always use the SSL servers from astraweb

Re: Astraweb
 

I am thinking of dropping these and going back to Giganews or at least testing them again to see if the retention is actually stable.

For me a lot of files over a few months old are not only broken but for some reason they only allow a couple of connections to them slowing the speed right down.

Ive tried all the servers secure and insecure different ports and different newsreaders. I have a feeling Astra are migrating older files to lesser servers in an attempt to keep up with giganews retention

Re: Astraweb
 

As said earlier, all i can comment on is my own experience with astra. As the image below proves, no issues here at all on 50mb and this shot was when downloading a file approx 12 months old.

Phil

Re: Astraweb
 

I have just submitted my cancellation and will be going with these instead.

https://www.supernews.com/signup/index.html


I have had enough of the slow speeds and corrupted files from Astra

Re: Astraweb
 

Keep us informed dude :)

Re: Astraweb
 

Will do :tu: i have to finish this months subscription first. Not willing to pay for service from both suppliers in 1 month. I am daft but not that daft :LOL:

Re: Astraweb
 

Giganews reseller so should be ok.

7 19 ms 15 ms 15 ms amst-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.6]
8 17 ms 19 ms 15 ms 216-196-108-117.ams.giganews.com [216.196.108.117]
9 18 ms 15 ms 15 ms news.supernews.com [138.199.67.30]

Re: Astraweb
 

I was actually considering that. Ive had a ticket raised with astra since early December to which I have not had a reply since around the 20th. Ive asked if I would get a refund if I canceled now on the grounds of crap service but I dont expect a reply. I think they have screwed themselves trying to keep up retention wise with Giganews. 350 days is fine if its proper so lets hope supernews can supply what they offer

Re: Astraweb
 

It might be that they are just victims of their own success ... didnt they have a special offer during the summer/autumn where they had an $8 a month deal when you paid for some months in advance?

Can anyone remind me what newsgroup host VM use?

/edit
Bloody hell, giganews are now saying they have 522 days retention!!

looking at http://www.newsgroupservers.net/ now, they say this about astra:
Astranews is something of an enigma wrapped in mystery surrounded by styrofoam peanuts. We've been tying to get in contact with them to learn more about their operation, but so far have had no luck. Their service has had intermittent disruptions over the years. Sometimes their website is slow or unresponsive. But they have a loyal following of subscribers. They certainly have low prices. Be careful of their unlimited plans though - the entry level newsgroup service rate speed limits you to 1Mbit / sec - OK for dial up or old DSL, but not for cable modem users.

To the best of our knowledge they run their own backend and front end, relying on no outside services other than to peer with the major providers to get their messages.

Re: Astraweb
 

Re: Astraweb
 

I think Giganews can afford to have the storage on good servers whereas Astraweb it appears ( to me anyway) to shift their older data onto lesser machines. They should have have played keep up with the Jones's

Chances are I will be shifting to supernews once Mr Black lets us know if they are any good lol

Re: Astraweb
 

Seems i am not the only one having problems with Astraweb. After raising several tickets with them and not finding an answer they decedied to point the finger at my ISP (VM) with their traffic management but am i right in saying Vm do not have tm on there 50mb bb?

Anyway i canceled wih Astraweb and went onto Supernews as mentioned above and downloading both the same files i get to max out my connection on Supernews but not Astraweb (surprise)


For anyone wanting to sign to Supernews i found an unlimited SSL for $9.99 (slightly cheaper than Astraweb)


http://www.supernews.com/superspecial.html


So far have not had any issues :D

Re: Astraweb
 

my Astraweb billing rollover is 5th Feb so ill be going to supernews :)

Re: Astraweb
 

as above maxed out 50meg connection no problems in belfast. will have a go at some older stuff to see if the files are as flaky as people make out and report back. i have no complaints and $11 a month is hard to beat.

Re: Astraweb
 

Thanks, used this and was downloading nicely in 30 minutes ;) (paid by paypal, 10 connections SSL on port 443)

Re: Astraweb
 

well after yet another 4 gig of wasted bandwidth I took the plunge and signed upto supernews and tried the same file dated 3rd september last year and its complete on Supernews so bye bye Astraweb and bye bye and recommendation I used to give you

Re: Astraweb
 

26 of jan and then i am off to supernews

Re: Astraweb
 

yeah I couldnt handle the crap anymore lol £6.31 its just cost me

Re: Astraweb
 

Also having the same problems with Astraweb service, constant disconnections and timeouts/errors.

Restarting the client doesnt fix it, its crawling along with speeds also, support come back and state "it happens sometimes" but it keeps on happening!

So what does everyone reckon to this supernews lot?

Any good? How do I cancel the astraweb one?

Re: Astraweb
 

Open a support ticket providing your username and order number, requesting they cancel the account. Just like I have done.

Re: Astraweb
 

I am happy so far with Supernews

Re: Astraweb
 

Ive also gone to supernews, its great really fast and stable.

I even got a refund for the month from astraweb as told them I wasnt happy with it.

Re: Astraweb
 

Is the problem with Astraweb, VM, or could it be the client somftware on the computer. The number of times I've had issues recently I've found it to need a reboot of the computer and then Grabit clears itself.

Re: Astraweb
 

I was having problems with VM before XMAS with the fluctuations in 50mb speed, as soon as I downgraded to 20mb it was fixed. So gone back to 50mb and the speeds are fine but this time round it is the news provider that is at fault.

As soon as I changed to supernews superfast and stable!

Re: Astraweb
 

I think a lot of the retention stuff is on lesser servers. There is a major incomplete problem and also on these servers connections appear to be limited. Some files were only allowing 1 or 2 connections instead of the 20

Re: Astraweb
 

I am with Astraweb and use two programs being Grabit and NewsBin Pro for getting stuff off newsgroups. Grabit sometimes doesn't work with SSL connections for some reason. The same server with the same port and on SSL on NewsBin Pro works ALL the time, no problems at all. Are you by any chance trying to use Grabit with SSL?

Re: Astraweb
 

Rob i am fairly confident its astraweb

Re: Astraweb
 

Newsbin for me has always worked perfectly with astraweb, but if you check the newsbin forums they have a close working relation with astraweb..

Re: Astraweb
 

Thats what I was using on all the different servers older files were broken. Its a common complaint on the NZB sites I frequent so the blame is firmly in the laps of Astraweb

---------- Post added at 20:15 ---------- Previous post was at 20:14 ----------

yeah cuz I am a total novice aint I and have no idea about diagnostic testing in any way shape or form ;)

Re: Astraweb
 

I'm currently downloading from Astra using Grabit, on Sky BB. No problems whatsoever, nor any recently that I can think of.

Re: Astraweb
 

Had problems tonight even with supernews it would crawl along at 1mb download and flutter upto 2mb then back down to 1mb.

At 9pm it returned back to normal so not sure what the issue is.

Have tried both ports 443 and 563.

Do a speed test though and get full speed on there but sometimes this issue affects browsing also.

VM dont seem to know what the issue is.

Re: Astraweb
 

Moved over to supernews today, What a differance.

The same files i was getting slow speeds and bad retention on yesterday with Astraweb have downloaded at 48.7 meg today and without a problem on super-news :)

Re: Astraweb
 

Have done exactly the same and spot on results.Am downloading constantly at about 5700kbs with supernews, where as with astra from 2000 to 3000kbs

Re: Astraweb
 

Same here not seen any problems with astraweb. (On VM)

Re: Astraweb
 

wonder how long Supernews will last before it goes the same way as astraweb. victims of their success it seems. i am still getting ok speeds with astra

Re: Astraweb
 

Hi, I have been using astraweb for over a year now and to begin with i used all 20 connections, but i was getting erratic speeds as well... i use only 10 connections now and it max's out every time. I would suggest lowering the number of connections to 10 and testing.

Re: Astraweb
 

Used to use Giganews, then moved over to Astra web a few months ago, and have found no difference in speed or retention between the two.

Astraweb for me is still perfectly fast at @ 21Mb on my 20Mb conection, and using Newsbin Pro.

Why go anywhere else when it is this cheap, and stable.

Just my 2p

Re: Astraweb
 

Supernews directly resell Giganews, who have arguably the best network in the Usenet world. There's not much danger of them (Giga) having network issues, and they can easily saturate a 200Mbps line never mind a few extra UK broadband lines. ;)

I was with Giganews for years, but jumped ship to Astraweb for 18 months after the strengthening dollar made them (Giga) ever more expensive. Astra was great until just before xmas, when the incompletes, authentication issues and speed problems started. Sadly it seems it's rather Astraweb who have become a victim of their own popularity.

I'm over with Supernews now (with a fill server for >350 day articles) and get 6MB/sec no problems. At only $10 a month you can't really go wrong!

Curious to read of the EU server IP for them in this thread though (138.199.67.30) as customer services/tech support told me they don't have an EU address to give out and there's "only one server - news.supernews.com". It seems that's not strictly true, and while they may use one URL they obviously employ routing to find your nearest server (EU/USA/Asia as per Giga's network).

Unfortunately in my case, for some reason, news.supernews.com resolves to the USA servers:

But using the EU IP listed earlier in this thread directly gives much better results:

Much better! I was considering jumping to Newshosting (who are part of Highwinds and already enjoying a peering relationship with VM) because of issues with the US Supernews server (latency, variable speeds). Now I can directly connect to their EU server it looks like I don't need to! :D

Re: Astraweb
 

Im on 50Mb Virgin Media downloading from Astraweb @ 6.00MB/s :)
No problems to report.

IF someone can comment on a particular post they are having trouble with or provide a NZB then I can test that and see if its complete.

:)

I had a few authentication errors, nothing major tho.

Heres my tracert to supernews, very good results I must say, so if AW deteriorates I should get great performance from SN

I assume the SN server farm is located in Amsterdam?

Re: Astraweb
 

Yeah, they're just a Giganews reseller. Giganews (hence Supernews) have servers in the US (Texas), EU (Amsterdam), and Asia. :)

Re: Astraweb
 

No problems with Astraweb here, been using them for a while now and very happy (although I think I may go for the $11 a month rather than the $39 I pay every qtr)

Had issues with Grabit & SSL but using Altbinz now and happy with that.

But seeing the prices at Simply I may jump ship
http://www.simplyusenet.co.uk/index.html

Re: Astraweb
 

Since moving from Astraweb to supernews my speeds have been rock solid. Much better than the variable speeds and mucked up retention i was seeing from astraweb.

Re: Astraweb
 

if you're looking for a decent newsreader check out sabnzbd as it is truely special :) you can set it to monitor folders for .nzb's and it has a scheduling function as well as the ability to configure multiple servers... main + backups plus much more!!

i am in no way affiliated with sabnzbd... just really like what they've done :)

Re: Astraweb
 

I also was with Astraweb and experiencing bad speeds on 50mb. Just signed up with supernews and speeds are solid!. Supernews also allows 10 more connections than astraweb for cheaper so for 6 quid a month its worth every penny imho.

Re: Astraweb
 

Only been getting around 10mbit all of Sunday Evening, first slowdowns I've seen (speedtest got 48mbit at same time). Maybe too many of us signed up to Supernews :p:

Re: Astraweb
 

Was downloading of supernews all last night at 47meg with no speed drops ?

Re: Astraweb
 

As I said above, Supernews simply resell Giganews. Since Giganews is the largest and most advanced NSP, and has been for a long time, a few more subscribers via Supernews really aren't going to make any difference. The Giga backhaul spreads across three continents and has masses of redundant bandwidth, moreso than any other provider. I've been with them (Giganews/Supernews) for years and have never seen any such slow-down.

I pulled about 50GB last night at 6MB/sec without a problem, so either Giga had a temporary localised glitch, or else your connection had an issue. It's always worth dropping Supernews a line when such things occur, as their support's fast and helpful. :)

Re: Astraweb
 

This this this, a million times this.

Sabnzbd is the ONLY download client you should use, it's so simple and does everything for you. Just download an nzb into a folder (or use the RSS support to do it for you) and it'll download everything, check it, repair it if needed, unrar it, delete the rars and any other files you tell it you don't want (like .nfo's, .sfv's, etc), and if it's a TV show automatically move it to where ever you want in what ever structure you want.

I don't see the point in spending money on a monthly sub to a newsgroup when the VM provided ones (highwinds) will max out 20meg and are perfectly fine for downloading anything newly released. I just have VM set up as my main server, with a pay-per-download astraweb sub as a fill server. It takes me months to use up the 180gb on the astraweb sub.

Re: Astraweb
 

Im am using astraweb and grabit on VM 10meg line and havent any of these issues.

Re: Astraweb
 

K+ left.
Looks good. I've been using NL for donkeys years.

Re: Astraweb
 

i use it on my NAS.
works fine

Re: Astraweb
 

I'd never download something dodgy via newsgroups if i couldn't use SSL so for me a paid newsgroup provider is a far safer option, but each to their own! :)

Re: Astraweb
 

SSL is as useful as a chocolate fireguard when most people are downloading nzb's over insecure connections anyway. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2+2 together and come up with probable cause when an nzb for lost is downloaded and then there's a stream of SSL'd newsgroup traffic.

Anyway it's all academic, no one has ever been prosecuted for downloading something dodgy via anything, and for good reason, the act of receiving an infringing copy of a copyright work is in itself not illegal, only the act of making and distributing the copy is.

I'd be more than willing to argue my case in court, and the rights holders know they wouldn't win a case against a pure downloader, which is why they have only ever targeted people they know are distributing over p2p.

The more interesting thing for me though is that people paying for newsgroup providers, newzbin etc, shows that people DO have an appetite to pay for the content, if the studios got together and offered a comparable service for a comparable price (quite possibly even costing slightly more) then many people that pay for newsgroups now would probably use it. Hell bundle it with TV services, I'd pay VM for an on demand service that had a back catalogue to the extent of what is available on newsgroups.

Re: Astraweb
 

sabnzbd..

Gave up on this eventually. Despite configuring well, it has a bad habit of downloading everything twice. God only knows why. You don't need that with a b/width cap in place.
Back to Newsleecher for me.

Re: Astraweb
 

Actualy downloading a copyrighted item is a civil issue the same as distributing the same item hence the companies claim a civil action against you and as distributing means they can claim more money than someone downloading a single copy they go for that instead. What is illegal is when you start charging for the item as you get into the realms of piracy and not just copyright infringment..

Anyway this thread is about Astraweb and not copyright ;) So back on topic we go..

I still don't have an issue with with Astraweb, can max out my 10Mb no matter how old the post is or whether I'm using the USA or EU servers..

In the end if you've moved to another supplier and you;re happy then good for you, if you stayed with Astraweb and are happy then good for you as well :D

Re: Astraweb
 

The problems I was encountering with Astra have now gone, can merrily download @ 50Mb+ and no authentication issues.

:)

Re: Astraweb
 

Interesting thread, I usually only use my Astraweb connection early morning or late at night and always get max speed. One thing I have been noticing is that some old files, typically 250 days plus always seem to be incomplete. Is this one of the issue some have had?

Re: Astraweb
 

Were you using RSS? If so your RSS must have been configured wrong. I've never had an issue with it doing that.


Nope, it's not. There is NOTHING in the copyright act about receiving an infringing copy, or using an infringing copy for domestic purposes, infact there's exceptions that specifically ALLOW use of an infringing copy for domestic purposes. But yes, very much offtopic ;)

Re: Astraweb
 

I suggest you go back and read the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended by the Copyright and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002 and also relating to computer programs the EEC council directive Directive 2009/24/EC

Most people seem to be confused by the rumours of domestic purposes If you're though desperate to discuss this then please open up a new thread..