NTL's hopeless News Servers

rockabillybass · 15-07-2003, 22:51

Hi,

Am I the only person that finds NTL's news servers almost unsuable.? I can't log on. When I do manage it, half the posts are missing. Even Google groups has more posts listed and that's known to be less than complete for most news groups..

I take it this is a national problem. How is it for the rest of you.. <g>

When are NTL going to sort this out? Anyone know?

Martin

_______________
Who needs a life when you've got Unix ?

BubbleGum · 16-07-2003, 00:54

They are supposed to be throwing a lot of money at them "soon" I hear from reading around and keeping my ear to the ground. "Coming soon" - that old chestnut again

Ben · 16-07-2003, 08:52

rockabillybass,

Yes the NTL news servers are terrible. I really can't see them getting any better any time soon either. You might of noticed 1000's of these posts over on .com (well I did)

Bluetack is right and it seems like the old story of "Coming Soon"

Enterian · 16-07-2003, 09:17

I gave up on them and now use Claranews.

Enterian

rockabillybass · 16-07-2003, 17:57

Typical NTL..

Thanks for the replies. It all gets too much for me some times.
I'll keep taking the tablets..

Martin

16-07-2003, 19:03

I use Teranews & Astraweb "free" news services for when NTL is borked.

Teranews requires a one off setup fee of about $5 by credit card, but allows posting.

Astraweb is completely free, but no posting.

Both are capped at 50MB per 24 hours (which includes headers), but carry way more groups than NTL & completion/retention is better too.

There is also Bubbanews, which I havn't tried, this shares the same server as Teranews with the same deal as Astraweb - free but no posting & 50MB per 24hrs.

16-07-2003, 20:03

I use news.cis.dfn.de it's free and carries practically every group you're likely to want to admit to downloading! :-)

LenMackin · 20-07-2003, 10:49

I just downloaded and took a look at news.cis.dfn.de. Don't what your experience of news servers is Graham but to describe this 'inadequate' news server as "carries practically every group you're likely to want to admit to downloading!" is utter rubbish to say the least. Huge gaps in newsgroups. Just try searching for warez for example or MP3

birchyboy · 20-07-2003, 11:00

rockabillybass - You're right. The servers are rubbish. I now only even bother to look at off-peak times, so weekends are a complete no-no.

Jerrek · 20-07-2003, 17:47

If you're into news servers like I am, consider getting a premium subscription from Giganews. I use it in conjunction with my cable company's news services, which is pretty good. For example, I would download files from my ISP, and then get all the missing "fills" from Giganews. They charge $15.95 a month for 8 GB of traffic, and $22.95 a month for 12 GB.

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

20-07-2003, 19:00

Quote:

Originally posted by LenMackin
I just downloaded and took a look at news.cis.dfn.de. Don't what your experience of news servers is Graham but to describe this 'inadequate' news server as "carries practically every group you're likely to want to admit to downloading!" is utter rubbish to say the least. Huge gaps in newsgroups. Just try searching for warez for example or MP3

yeah this server only does text groups and leaves out some of the "alt" groups as well.

Teranews & Astraweb carry binaries, though.

21-07-2003, 00:57

Quote:

Originally posted by LenMackin
I just downloaded and took a look at news.cis.dfn.de. Don't what your experience of news servers is Graham but to describe this 'inadequate' news server as "carries practically every group you're likely to want to admit to downloading!" is utter rubbish to say the least. Huge gaps in newsgroups. Just try searching for warez for example or MP3

Well, I apologise, it's clearly my mistake.

I didn't think people would want blatantly admit to downloading pirated software or stealing copyrighted music, but obviously I was wrong!

jemnery · 22-07-2003, 08:53

Quote:

Originally posted by rockabillybass
Am I the only person that finds NTL's news servers almost unsuable.? I can't log on. When I do manage it, half the posts are missing. Even Google groups has more posts listed and that's known to be less than complete for most news groups..

Maybe you already know this, but if you're using "news.ntlworld.com" as your news server, then switch to "text.news.ntlworld.com"

It's faster and more reliable, but it doesn't carry binary groups (you've already said you don't care about this though).