Best ISP for Binary news groups

[krooks]

Guys

I'm looking to move ISP, after being with Pipex for a couple of years now, I don't feel they're as good as they were, and their news servers seem to have gone to sh*t.

I'm looking to move to an ISP which has uncapped news server usage, and hosts alt.binaries.cd.image.xbox (and I'm not looking to pay extra for dedicated news server eg. terranews, easynews etc.). I've got to find somewhere soon, as I cancelled PIPEX last week and have got 30 days.

Unfortunately, I did sign up with metronet on Thursday, but have just discovered, that there is a 300mb limit per day on downloads! (so I'm hoping to cancel before it goes live) no good if I'm looking for a 1 or 2MB line!

Any advice greatly appreciated!

[Phreakster]

Use Nildram, they are highly rated and so you will always get your top download speeds and as far as newsgroups are concerned they do provide access to their basic news server as well as two connections to a giganews server which has retention age of about 30 days.

You can't really go wrong, they are a quid or two more expensive, but migrating to them is free as well as upgrading the line speed :thumbs Oh yeh did I mention the one month running contract

[kracken]

Use Nildram, they are highly rated and so you will always get your top download speeds and as far as newsgroups are concerned they do provide access to their basic news server as well as two connections to a giganews server which has retention age of about 30 days.

You can't really go wrong, they are a quid or two more expensive, but migrating to them is free as well as upgrading the line speed :thumbs Oh yeh did I mention the one month running contract

Ive been with nildram now ever since i got me adsl (year or so) and been using there news.nildram.co.uk details . Apart from the poor retention ( 2-3 days max ) the subscribed groups im on are always full speed for me (1 Mbps adsl) .

The reason im posting is i was interested in your post Phreakster and especially the bit .....

....as far as newsgroups are concerned they do provide access to their basic news server as well as two connections to a giganews server which has retention age of about 30 days.

Ive looked on nildrams site and cant see a mention of it anywhere :nowords: , anychance you can give me sum more info or even point me to a link for it plz ?

many thanx

[krooks]

not sure about nildram myself, seems a bit steep for 1MB (£35), any other suggestions?

[CzarJunkie]

In reply to the original question, there is no UK ISP as far as I know that provides anything like a decent news service.

Try the US providers like either Astraweb or the like. but they do cost.

[Phreakster]

If you know anything about newsgroups then you must know that newsleecher is the best program for NG's.

For the giganews servers, simply put down giganews.nildram.co.uk and have a max of 2 connections set. Even right now I'm downloading pulp fiction DVDR that is 14days old :thumbs

Oh yeh just a word of advice, be careful if you download headers as you could be waiting a long time if you have set your newsreader to fetch all headers. Use NZB's or even alt.binaries.nl to get your files

Yes Nildram is slightly more expensive, but you get what you pay for and you do get top service. You'll be struggling trying to find any bad review for nildram.

[dragon69]

claranet has a newsgroups news.clara.net which has about 5 days retetion. but theres been a completion issues on and off over the last few months but there about the only ones I can think of as uk base isp with good news group service. And I amlooking for the same thing off to see nildram site now

[ABCMan]

instead of paying £35 for your isp why not use one with no news service at about £25 and use the tenner to sign up for an unlimited news service www.newshosting.com cost about £8-10 per month and has binary retention of about 18-22 days with 99.9% completion its capped to 4 connections and a total of 2mb/sec but there are no download limits so you can rape at upto 2mb/sec all day every day if you desire, if you need more speed they do a 35 day retention £5.80/10gb service which can handle download speeds higher than all home isp's in the uk provide and upto 8 connections from multiple ip's.

[Phreakster]

End of the day all ISP's are going to struggle keeping a news server up to date with high completion and long day of retension. Even Pipex had good service for some time, but now its all gone down hill.

The thing I like about Nildram is that its realised this and instead of trying to mess about with server upgrades, have got a contract with Giganews which is a dedicated news service provider. Downloads are unlimited but the only downside is that you can only have a max of 2 connections. but you can have as many to the nildram news server.

So you simply set newsleecher to get all the binaries from the nildram server and fill in any gaps from the giganews server. :thumbs

Also saves having to set up 2 monthly payments, plus Nildram service is top notch and excellent for online gaming. Best thing I love the most is that I can change the speed each month without additional charges

[dragon69]

talking with a tech head mate last night and hes been reading up on a new law thingy in america to get ride of the "betamax" law (?) that if it get threw means no more alt.bin groups and will force usenet feeders to track all messages

[BLUE|MOON]

hiya, im also lookin for new isp, canceled 'NThelL' bout a week ago, been looking on www.adslguide.org and found that nildram nd plusnet seem to be quite good, was going to get bulldog untill i saw the ratings on that website, so, is nildram probably the best value for money and service in the uk please?

Cheers

BLUE|MOON

[colh]

I am with plusnet, their newsserver aint the best but it aint bad for free. Retention is only three days at best, but fot free it aint bad. I use astraweb for my fills, £14 or so for 65gb and it should last me months. Plusnet are very good all round imo, well worth a look.

[rockdj99uk]

I'm with Plusnet and recently they have upgraded their news servers. I'm getting retention of 4-5 days and pretty good completion.

There's plenty of decent pay servers out there at the moment, even Giganews have started an unlimited account. $25/month. 40 days retention, if you download regularly though theres no need for this much retention.

[guest]

Eclipse also use a Giganews feed.
Their newsgroups used to be rubbish, but sometime last year they upgraded to Giganews and now it's superb.
I think they're slightly cheaper than nildram and have a unique "flexing" ability.

For binaries, completeness is practically 100% and retention is about 50 days.
(I regularly download from alt.binaries.movies.divx)
The only limiting factor is that you get a maximum of two connections, both at 16 KBps, so 32KBps in total.
But, considering the retention and completeness and the fact that it's included in the price of the ISP, I can't complain.

[The Dementor]

I'm simply using telewest blueyonder, and have no real problems with NG's, ok retention rate is not great 2-3 days, but completion rate is quite good. I regulary grab from a.b.cdimage.xbox, and dvdr groups, without too may problems.

[chris71]

Hi quick question,

Nildram/Giganews, can anyone tell me if there download speeds are capped like Eclipse's are when using the giganews servers?

Ta

[jcosty]

yes 2 at 30 kb/s

[Chris303]

i always get top speeds on blueyonders newsgroups.
they had serious completion problems for a while so i moved to a subscription
provider for a year but im back again as its all sorted

[jw_2000_uk]

I agree with all the Blueyonder shouts,

I used to subscribe to usenet,wich was great.


BUT,started using the the blueyonder news server, gotta say its amazing,never get stuck without files,yes thats mainly due to PAR2 files,but as long as u get it all who cares,also its FREE. (well i know we have the sevice) but its a nice xtra.


So BY gets my vote for now.

[_Belial]

and dont forget, nildram recently changed their news service so that it's now capped to 20GB a month on the 2MB lines, 15GB a month on the 1MB lines, not sure on the 512k, probably 10G, after that you have to pay.