Usenet Newsgroup Server Account Types

 

  • Four things really matter when choosing a binary newsgroup server provider:
  • What you need to know:

    • Unlimited Access Usenet Account
      • If you plan to use a newsreader program to read a lot of attachments, an unlimited newsgroup account is a no-brainer. A good unlimited account with Newshosting will set you back $15 a month, while a metered account with most providers will run $10. Rock-solid, super long retention unlimited usenet can be found at Giganews from $25 a month.
      • Unlimited plans sometimes are often offered with different server options. One example is Newshosting, which offers a medium and a long retention service. Typically, the longer retention service also gets faster updates from peers and may have more redundancy built in to it to reduce the likelihood of hardware failures.
      • Some "unlimited" usenet accounts will actually slow down your connection or cut you off altogether if you pull down too much during the month. This is especially a danger when buying through a reseller, who has to pay the actual service provider for whatever their customers download.
      • Unlimited usenet accounts at most providers are often bare-bones, with no special web interfaces or add-ons. Those extras are usually reserved for their metered or block account users.

    • Metered use newsgroup providers: .
      • Metered use accounts are generally considered accounts that allow a set amount of downloading either daily or monthly. Accounts spanning more than a month are typically considered Block accounts.
      • The most common type of metered account allows a user to download up to a specific amount (pricing depends on the limit selected) per month. When that limit is reached, you cannot download any more until you pay again (either automatically with an "auto-refill" option, or wait until the next monthly billing cycle.)
      • Another type of metering limits you to a specific amount per day. We particularly hate this type of packaging. On paper it looks good because the total available over 31 days can be much more than the monthly plans, but you only get that if you log on every day and download to the limit. No-one does that in the real world. We recommend you stay away from daily limit plans.
      • Most metered accounts are "use it or lose it", but some do roll your unused GB into the next month. This is a particularly valuable feature - although keep in mind that most companies only let you keep the extra as long as you are a paying customer. If you cancel your account, you usually can't live off your excess into the next few months.
      • Some of the usenet companies let you build up extra GB's by answering surveys, recommending friends, or contributing CPU time to charity.
      • Metered accounts are the VIP accounts at most usenet companies. If there is a special web interface or priority help desk, it is often restricted to metered account users only. Easynews' thumbnailer and zip manager tool can really save you alot by letting you preview pictures and movies, then having them compressed into zip files for easy downloading (of course they have traditional NNTP newsreader access too)

    • Block plans
      • Block plans let you buy a specific number of GB with no time limit, or a time limit of more than a month (3, 6 or 12 months) on when you must use them.
      • These plans are really nice as a backup to another monthly plan, in case the other plan has a hardware failure, you always have something to fall back on.
      • Block plans are also a good supplement to a standard ISP newsgroup server. If your ISP's usenet server is fairly good, but retention or completion are a problem, consider picking up a block account and configuring your newsreader software to read from both services, with your ISP as primary.

    • A few words about the number of connections:
      • Most premium Usenet providers allow you to use somewhere between 3 and 20 connections at one time.
      • These connections are not to be shared with other users - most providers require (and technologically control) that all connections be from the same IP address at any given time. Connection attempts from more than one IP addresses are usually blocked.
      • Having multiple connections allows your newsreader program to do multiple access at once. For example, you may be reading a large number of attachment messages in a video group, when you decide you want to also download headers from a music discussion group. While the headers download, you may also decide to check out the cover art for an Indie band that has agreed to put its stuff in a usenet group using an "over-ride" download. If you were limited to only one connection, the video group messages would have to stop downloading to allow the headers to be retrieved, and that too would have to stop when you requested an over-ride download of the album art file. But if the usenet provider allows multiple connections, you can do all these things at once.
      • Multiple connections may also speed up the download of large message queues. By opening 3 or 4 connections between your newsreader and the newsgroup provider, different message parts may travel different paths to your PC, avoiding some bottlenecks and creating a faster overall speed than downloading each message part sequentially. Our experience is that the impact falls off sharply after about 4 connections though - in fact Giganews can fully fill our 12 Mps cable connection with a single connection most days.

    • Web-Interface / Thumbnail preview services
      • Some users just don't want to be bothered with setting up newsreader software, or downloading headers to pick from. Usenet services are now available with web interfaces that let you previews of files so you can easily pick and choose the specific ones you want.
      • Often times a newsgroup may see a flood of 1000 attached pictures or videos. While only 20% may be of interest to you, with a traditional newsgroup program you must download them all, or at least an index picture (if the poster uploaded one) to select which messages to download. That's a lot of wasted bandwidth. Thumbnail previews let you use your time and bandwidth wisely.
      • Multi-part messages are pre-joined to create complete files on the server. No need to learn how to RAR, PAR, HJSplit, etc.
      • Two very good options for this type of service are Skin Video and Easynews.

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