[merged] binary newsgroups on NTL

[PAZZA]

astraweb is a little slower than the NTL binaries, but for the price I suppose you cant complain. Overall as im not a DVD downloader im happy, but worse off each month moneywise because of NTL.

[astra_lestat]

What do you mean slower?

[PAZZA]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

What do you mean slower?

Ill explain, Ive chosen the $10 option, probably referred to by"powermongers" as the "cheap and nasty option". I can get 8 connections to it though, giving me an average download speed of 85k/s (less connections was slower, so i decided on all 8). On NTL i got a slightly better speed, when NTL increse their speed ill still get 85k/s though cos im running at maximum speed the server allows.

[astra_lestat]

Uhm. I think I understand..not sure.
I have seen there two unlimited options, 10 and 15$. 15 is unlimited traffic and speed, and 10 - unlimited traffic but limited speed - 600Kbps, correct?
Have you chosen the latter one? Then it was your choise. I am going to subscribe to astra 10$ unlimited/600 tomorrow.

[PAZZA]

thats the one im on, as long as you dont want to leech at full ntl bandwith 24/7 it should be fine for you.

[Matth]

http://news.astraweb.com/plans.html

I thought the "pay by download" at $10 per 25Gb (unlimited speed/connections) - and a tiny bit cheaper if you buy a bigger chunk, looked pretty good.

http://news.astraweb.com/downloadplans.html - Check the FAQ

- No time limits
- No connection limits
- No censoring
- No monitoring
- No posting limits
- No expiry date on your credits
- Headers are not counted towards your downloads

Even better, unless you are seriously going to average >= 25Gb per month of article bodies

[jtwn]

$8.95
1gb a day - you can go over, just when you logout say, you've used 6gb you are off for 5 days.
24 day retention binaries/160 text (10 days on astraweb? )
No dl limits - i max out

[Rik]

Originally Posted by sherer

well i signed up with astraweb in the end.. they quite good but alot slower than the NTL ones

Perhaps you should of joined www.newshosting.com with over 30days retention and maxes my 1.5meg connection. as I mentioned earlier in the post, way better than Astranews, and im not biased as ive tried both.

[astra_lestat]

It is not really slower.

Astra just has got two options for users while newshosting only one.
They both have unlimited traffic withunlimited speed for 15$.
However, astra offers one more option for just 10$, which is unlimited traffic with 600kbps connection.
If you have 1.5M line and you want to use it to a full extent, then this option is not suitable for you. But if you have 750K or slower line, 600kbps is almost perfect, because doesn't matter how fast is your news server, you cannot download faster than your broad band package allows, which is the case with 750K.

[PAZZA]

Originally Posted by Matth

I thought the "pay by download" at $10 per 25Gb (unlimited speed/connections) - and a tiny bit cheaper if you buy a bigger chunk, looked pretty good.

Its OK if you must have the files as fast as possible, but with 10-15 days retention, getting them a bit slower but cheaper seemed a more logical option to me, but I guess a "one size fits all" NEVER fits all so you need a selection of deals!

[astra_lestat]

Uhm, I have just realised that my nick is astra_lestat. Believe me, it has nothing to do with astra news!!! Just a pure coinsidence. I didn#t even know about this service before someone has mentioned it on this forum.
When NTL's news went down I was considering www.corenews.com . They offer unlimited speed with daily 2G cap for 10$.
After I join astra tomorrow I might not like it after all

[PAZZA]

seems astraweb is the popular choice atm, it certainly is good value compared to some more popular news providers.

Unlike NTL, astraweb (probably like most news servers) has some VERY illegal picture groups, dont even look at the contents, no doubt they are monitered as to who downloads what, I found out by accident using a grabit search for something not even picture related.

[peacemaker]

Hi,

Have a look here, it's an interesting read. http://www.newsgroupservers.net/
Please note the bit about Corenews at the very bottom.

I must admit over the past 6 months I found NTL great for retention and completion, at the mo all incompletes or "post purged" when I try to download. I hope it gets back to normal soon!!

All the best
Peacemaker

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by peacemaker

Hi,

Have a look here, it's an interesting read. http://www.newsgroupservers.net/
Please note the bit about Corenews at the very bottom.

I must admit over the past 6 months I found NTL great for retention and completion, at the mo all incompletes or "post purged" when I try to download. I hope it gets back to normal soon!!

All the best
Peacemaker

Thanks a lot for a great link!

[PAZZA]

it says astraweb isnt so good, we will have to see i guess, its good so far though fortunatly paying month-by-month lets you go elsewhere if it sux