Astraweb

[bigsinky]

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

[gobbledigook]

Originally Posted by richardford1976

They normally do max out my 20mb connection usually with 20 concurrent connections and max speed is generally 2300kbps.

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.

[Dustymiller]

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

[RainmakerRaw]

Originally Posted by bigsinky

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

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:

C:\Windows\System32>tracert news.supernews.com

Tracing route to news.supernews.com [216.168.3.30]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     9 ms    10 ms     7 ms  cpc3-know11-2-0gw.know.cable.virginmedia.com [62.31.65.1]
  2    11 ms    14 ms     7 ms  osr02know-ge36.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.114.185]
  3     9 ms    48 ms     9 ms  man-bb-b-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.149]
  4    13 ms    15 ms    15 ms  tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.70]
  5    16 ms    18 ms    24 ms  tge10-3.fr3.lon.llnw.net [87.248.208.141]
  6    15 ms    24 ms    24 ms  tge5-1.fr4.lon.llnw.net [69.28.171.138]
  7    98 ms   108 ms    99 ms  tge11-1.fr4.lga.llnw.net [69.28.172.149]
  8   105 ms    98 ms    99 ms  tge2-3.fr4.iad.llnw.net [69.28.171.153]
  9    90 ms    91 ms    92 ms  giganews.tge11-3.fr4.iad.llnw.net [69.28.157.38]
 10    93 ms    95 ms   108 ms  216.168.3.14
 11    90 ms   100 ms    93 ms  news.supernews.com [216.168.3.30]

Trace complete.

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

C:\Windows\System32>tracert 138.199.67.30

Tracing route to news.supernews.com [138.199.67.30] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     7 ms     7 ms     9 ms  cpc3-know11-2-0gw.know.cable.virginmedia.com [62.31.65.1]
  2    12 ms     9 ms     7 ms  osr02know-ge36.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.114.185]
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  man-bb-b-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.149]
  4    37 ms    16 ms    15 ms  pop-bb-a-as4-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.162.85]
  5    23 ms    23 ms    23 ms  amst-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.6]
  6    29 ms    23 ms    23 ms  216-196-108-117.ams.giganews.com [216.196.108.117]
  7    24 ms    23 ms    23 ms  news.supernews.com [138.199.67.30]

Trace complete.

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!

[Rik]

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

Tracing route to news.supernews.com [138.199.67.30]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  heme-cmts-10-lback-20.network.virginmedia.net [81.104.40.1]
  3     8 ms     7 ms     7 ms  lutn-t3core-1a-ge-300-2547.network.virginmedia.net [80.4.221.81]
  4    20 ms     7 ms     6 ms  pop-bb-a-as5-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.149]
  5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  amst-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.6]
  6    16 ms    15 ms    15 ms  216-196-108-117.ams.giganews.com [216.196.108.117]
  7    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  news.supernews.com [138.199.67.30]

I assume the SN server farm is located in Amsterdam?

[RainmakerRaw]

Originally Posted by Rik

I assume the SN server farm is located in Amsterdam?

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

[alferret]

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

[Sirius]

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.

[gobbledigook]

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

[jalzoo]

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.

[hopester]

Originally Posted by bigsinky

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

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

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by hopester

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

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

[RainmakerRaw]

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.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by gobbledigook

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

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.

[psyfur]

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