Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

For the last 3 days I have only been able to get 10K/s per slot from Easynews no matter how I connect, what route I choose or what proxy I use.

Easynews say there are no known problems at there end.

Connecting to Ntl's usenet server to download headers I get full speed initially then it drops to the same 10K/s. Mind you it could just be broke again.

Needless to say, this is making Usenet practically unusable.

I'm on 3meg by the way and my connection is behaving normally otherwise, as far as I can tell.

I've seen some comment from other Ntl/Telewest users on another forum experiencing the same problem and I wonder if it has relevence to the problem described in the Astraweb thread.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue..

Mick.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I'd like to know this too. I use Giganews.

I'm on 3mb (probably the only one left...) and up to 3 months ago always got full speed. Then I discovered usenet.. Well, had used it before, just not for heavy downloading. Since then I might get full speed for an hour or two, then the speed just gets slower. Then the connection breaks off and its intermitant connection thereafter. Very annoying. I'm sure ntl is doing something to limit downloading. So 3mb means 3mb only if you use it for a small amount of time...not much point in these fast speeds if you can't use it when you want it.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I'm getting my full 10Mbit using newshosting.com.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

Me to. average 1023kB :)

I am pretty sure NTL are not restricting newsgroup access :)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

giganews is poor because of amsterdam congestion, easynews has a traceroute tool you can use to see if their is a routing issue between them and yourself.

http://easynews.com/trace/

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I use NTL News Servers and Astraweb servers and always Max out my 3Mb connection, usually get between 350 and 380kbps and sometimes on a really good day 400 - 410kbps.

Should have the 10Mb tomorrow, see what that brings.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

hi fellow easynews user o/

have you tried different ports/addresses.
usually connect on proxy.news.easynews.com or the ssl port via stunnel no problems for me atm though they were slow a few days back.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

using powerusenet on 2mb - no probs here. I've noticed surfing a bit slow, but not usenet access.

The first rule of usenet: you do not talk about usenet
The second rule of usenet: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT USENET
;)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I've never had a problem with GigaNews, always get the full speed. Although my area is on about 2.7mb instead of the 3mb at the moment, due to the upgrades. (even though i'm on the 10mb config file).

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I contacted Easynews about slow connections and I was told that NTL are having problems and are throttling usenet connections at certain times.

I have confirmed this in that easynews downloads are at about 16K b4 11PM and then they shoot up to 236K (2MB connection). I get the same results on all proxy/port configurations and also when using NNTP.

I don't know whether this is an NTL technical issue or whether they are deliberately restricting the bandwidth to usenet connections.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

700 - 800k with Astraweb my friend :)

That's using the pay per download settings. I might change and try if I can get any more via the different ports etc.

I get a cool 1100-1200k via NTL's own connection :)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

Famous last words there. Merrily downloading at 234k and suddenly, 5 mins before the damn thing is due to finish - 24k a second and 502 errors. Then Grabit crashes when it tries to exit.

Hope it's better in the morning!

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

Sorry but that is not true NTL are not throttling easynews simple as that.
Now you can choice not to believe me , but i know we are not throttling newsgroups :)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I have never had a problem with easynews any time of day or night. I get 10mb perfectly fine. http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/at...2&d=1131496035 Oh well - Bill beat me to it :)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

Just tried NTL's own news server and that is working fine at top speed, so they ain't throttling port 119. Just seems to be a hitch. Hope it's okay soon...a new linux distro is up on Thursday morning.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

newshosting does look impressive I like how you can force a route using the port number and I imagine they better because they cost a bit more then the rest.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I'm not doubting what you're saying, but how do you know that they're not restricting bandwidth (especially as it seems to be also time related, off-peak hours being OK according to one poster)?

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I use them because of that feature

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have just tried all the ports that newshosting allows and it's full speed on all of them. I can honestly state that we are not throttling the ports on newsgroups.

I have no idea why easynews would make such a false statement.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

Beware, newshosts will bull**** and blame everyone else till the cows come home just to not dent their reputation, its always the ISP's problem with them.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I think that's a bit unfair, as no-one seems to know what's going on at the moment. Perhaps this can throw some light on things http://forum.easynews.com/index.php?...ewThread=82578

Looks as if there are a few potential causes on the table...but then at least they look like they're trying to get the bottom of it.

Equally, I would suggest caution in believing everything that an ISP tells you... it wouldn't be the first time that things were being done to the internet connection in a slightly underhand manner.

Not that I am suggesting that this is happening in this case...but there are always two sides to every story...and that thread linked above is quite interesting.

Not that it really affects me, I don't even use ntl's newsgroups anymore let along a third parties (since I died of terminal impatience waiting for 2k of text to download several years ago).:)

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

I've done some testing tonight:

NTL 10Mbit:

newshosting.com - takes 3 connections to max 10mbit
eu giganews.com - takes 1 connection to max 10mbit
newscene.com - takes, I estimate, 5+ connections to max 10mbit
easynews.com - cannot get it to go above 3mbit with any number of connections

Bulldog with speed of ~6Mbit:

easynews.com - takes 2 connections to max out the ~6mbit
I didn't bother testing the other three

Easynews and NTL are definitely having issues together.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

It is probably a peering issue possibly a saturated peering port from ntl.

If you test giganews during peak hours whatch the speed crumble that will be because the amsterdam congestion.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

weird thing just happened to me - alt.binaries.clonezone was there, I started grabbing a file and then the whole group disappeared (no such group error). Refresh of the group list showed it had disappeared completely. Using powerusenet which is a reseller of giganews. Weird.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

ok to try and settle this easynews issue I did a trace on their site to me and got this

HOST LOSS RCVD SENT BEST AVG WORST
ge1-8-1000m.sw1.easynews.com 0% 10 10 0.42 12.17 35.60
e-2-31-1000m.core-03.phx1.puregig.net 0% 10 10 0.30 2.64 22.10
ge3-3-0.jr1.phx1.llnw.net 0% 10 10 0.78 5.71 18.39
agg1-6-1.ar1.phx1.llnw.net 0% 10 10 1.41 5.57 31.84
so1-5-1.ar1.dal.llnw.net 0% 10 10 28.62 43.93 85.36
so1-5-2.ar1.ord.llnw.net 0% 10 10 52.81 56.69 83.51
so1-5-2.ar1.lga.llnw.net 0% 10 10 74.58 80.28 108.37
so1-5-1.ar1.lon.llnw.net 0% 10 10 148.15 152.16 174.35
ag1-21.fr1.lon.llnw.net 0% 10 10 147.44 151.44 175.00
195.66.224.25 60% 4 10 281.77 292.43 302.11
bre-bb-b-as0-0.inet.ntl.com 0% 10 10 142.88 163.85 208.13
ren-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com 0% 10 10 153.07 158.69 199.07
lee-bb-b-so-600-0.inet.ntl.com 20% 8 10 152.68 160.44 193.24
lee-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com 20% 8 10 152.66 157.32 179.98
leic-t2core-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com 0% 10 10 154.80 155.82 161.02
leic-t2cam1-a-ge-wan32.inet.ntl.com 0% 10 10 154.83 165.49 206.07
leic-leic-ubr-8-ge01.inet.ntl.com 0% 10 10 152.56 153.25 156.30
??? 100% 0 10 0.00 0.00 0.00

the hop 195.66.224.25 and leeds hops have packetloss but 195.66.224.25 does look suspicously high, dnsstuff reports the owner as LINX.

Now look at the 1st hop you will see it has an average of 12ms and worst of 35ms, this hop is internal to easynews and that is very high latency for a LAN so I reckon easynews have some internal problems to sort out and the blame for this one doesnt seem to lie with ntl.

Re: Are Ntl restricting Usenet access?
 

to bulldog.co.uk

ge1-8-1000m.sw1.easynews.com 0% 10 10 0.36 5.49 44.94
e-2-11-1000m.core-03.phx1.puregig.net 0% 10 10 0.31 0.42 0.59
ge3-3-0.jr1.phx1.llnw.net 0% 10 10 0.81 1.85 10.30
agg1-6-1.ar1.phx1.llnw.net 0% 10 10 1.37 5.54 21.72
so1-5-1.ar1.dal.llnw.net 0% 10 10 28.51 29.74 32.66
so1-5-2.ar1.ord.llnw.net 0% 10 10 53.01 54.22 60.05
so1-5-2.ar1.lga.llnw.net 0% 10 10 74.60 78.59 98.77
so1-5-1.ar1.ams.llnw.net 0% 10 10 151.42 152.06 154.27
ag1-21.fr1.ams.llnw.net 0% 10 10 150.64 153.61 165.66
de-cix1.schlund.net 0% 10 10 154.59 155.41 156.18
pos-50.gw-backbone-b.bad.schlund.net 0% 10 10 157.08 161.09 191.94
a0kac1.gw-dista-a.bs.ka.schlund.net 0% 10 10 157.07 162.39 181.33
gw-ps6.bs.ka.schlund.net 10% 9 10 158.13 167.84 198.68
212.227.127.109 10% 9 10 157.38 158.29 158.84

it doesnt go over that dodgy LINX hop but this isnt accurate for a bulldog dsl user since bulldog are hosting externally in germany O_o.