OT: Comcast dropping newsgroup access

I recently dumped Comcast TV for Dish Network and it looks like they're
begging me to dump them for internet access as well. In addition to
their single product price for internet being more expensive than the
same internet service plus basic cable TV (which is bizarre), they've
been steadily adding more and more limitations to their internet
service. They've added their own Peer to Peer servers on several P2P
networks for the purposes of entrapment and foiling even legitimate
downloads, and they've imposed total bandwidth limitations per month on
their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even
make sense because it's not even their server that they have to
maintain, it's handled by Giganews). I'd advise anyone to consider
other alternatives than Comcast service. Also, their idea of
"multi-platform" consists of XP and Vista as far as their support people
are concerned.

Here's their message regarding newsgroups to their customers, FYI:

As of October 25, 2008, the complimentary Comcast Newsgroups
service, powered by Giganews, will be discontinued. This
feature provided customers access to 2 gigabytes of newsgroup
information on a monthly basis. After this date, these customers
will no longer be able to access the Comcast Newsgroups service
through Comcast. Customers who have subscribed directly to Giganews
for newsgroup access will not be affected by this change.

While we have seen a decline in popularity of newsgroups as
customers have chosen to get information from other sources, we know
a small percentage of our customers continue to use newsgroups
today. If you are interested in continuing to access newsgroups,
Giganews is offering a special promotion for Comcast customers.
To learn more, please visit the link below.

--
[Reverse the parts of the e-mail address to reply.]

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:31:31 UTC, Marty <net@comcast.martyamodeo>
wrote:
[color=blue]
> I recently dumped Comcast TV for Dish Network and it looks like they're
> begging me to dump them for internet access as well. In addition to
> their single product price for internet being more expensive than the
> same internet service plus basic cable TV (which is bizarre), they've
> been steadily adding more and more limitations to their internet
> service. They've added their own Peer to Peer servers on several P2P
> networks for the purposes of entrapment and foiling even legitimate
> downloads, and they've imposed total bandwidth limitations per month on
> their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even
> make sense because it's not even their server that they have to
> maintain, it's handled by Giganews). I'd advise anyone to consider
> other alternatives than Comcast service. Also, their idea of
> "multi-platform" consists of XP and Vista as far as their support people
> are concerned.
>
> Here's their message regarding newsgroups to their customers, FYI:
>
> As of October 25, 2008, the complimentary Comcast Newsgroups
> service, powered by Giganews, will be discontinued. This
> feature provided customers access to 2 gigabytes of newsgroup
> information on a monthly basis. After this date, these customers
> will no longer be able to access the Comcast Newsgroups service
> through Comcast. Customers who have subscribed directly to Giganews
> for newsgroup access will not be affected by this change.
>
> While we have seen a decline in popularity of newsgroups as
> customers have chosen to get information from other sources, we know
> a small percentage of our customers continue to use newsgroups
> today. If you are interested in continuing to access newsgroups,
> Giganews is offering a special promotion for Comcast customers.
> To learn more, please visit the link below.
>[/color]

This just means that NOW you gotta PAY!
Check this out

[url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html[/url]

Best deal is Individual Net - Very easy sign up via Paypal $15 per
year great deal
--

Marty,

On Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:31:31 -0700, Marty wrote:
[color=blue]
>I recently dumped Comcast TV for Dish Network and it looks like they're
>begging me to dump them for internet access as well. In addition to
>their single product price for internet being more expensive than the
>same internet service plus basic cable TV (which is bizarre), they've
>been steadily adding more and more limitations to their internet
>service. They've added their own Peer to Peer servers on several P2P
>networks for the purposes of entrapment and foiling even legitimate
>downloads, and they've imposed total bandwidth limitations per month on
>their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even
>make sense because it's not even their server that they have to
>maintain, it's handled by Giganews). I'd advise anyone to consider
>other alternatives than Comcast service. Also, their idea of
>"multi-platform" consists of XP and Vista as far as their support people
>are concerned.
>
>Here's their message regarding newsgroups to their customers, FYI:
>
>As of October 25, 2008, the complimentary Comcast Newsgroups
>service, powered by Giganews, will be discontinued. This
>feature provided customers access to 2 gigabytes of newsgroup
>information on a monthly basis. After this date, these customers
>will no longer be able to access the Comcast Newsgroups service
>through Comcast. Customers who have subscribed directly to Giganews
>for newsgroup access will not be affected by this change.
>
>While we have seen a decline in popularity of newsgroups as
>customers have chosen to get information from other sources, we know
>a small percentage of our customers continue to use newsgroups
>today. If you are interested in continuing to access newsgroups,
>Giganews is offering a special promotion for Comcast customers.
>To learn more, please visit the link below.
>
>--
>[Reverse the parts of the e-mail address to reply.][/color]

Yeah... I just saw this myself. This will probably push me over to FIOS -
been thinking of doing it anyway.

Dave McKenna

"Marty" <net@comcast.martyamodeo> skrev i meddelandet
news:Ie-dnXNYO9Ema3nVnZ2dnUVZ_ovinZ2d@comcast.com...
[color=blue]
> their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even[/color]

Unfortunatly this happend to almost all ISPs here in Sweden five to ten
years ago. The trend among all users seems to prefer web based forums and
most interesting discussions has moved in that direction. I have moved along
(content being more important for me than other things), but I think it's a
very unfortunate trend.

A dedicated news reader is so much faster and easier to read and navigate
discussion groups and threads than any web based solution that I have ever
seen. For mail I think it's fine to use a good web based solution (I use
Google) as the volume isn't nearly as big and diffent in quality (at least
with good spam filters) as discussion groups. For my corporate work email
it's a little different (I prefer the Outlook dedicated software over the
web based OWA version, even if it's very good alternative in it's latest
incarnation).

The good thing with mail is that you can easily switch between using a
dedicated client and a web based solution (using IMAP, Exchange, and other
such protocols keeps everything perfectly in synch). Going back to news
groups I think it would be great if we could get in the same direction.

Even if I generally would perfer using dedicated news readers (if it would
be possible) I still see the value of web based solutions as they can add a
lot of additional benefits and good extra functionallity to community web
sites. Adding support for nntp, or maybe better inventing a new more feature
rich and modern XML protocol, to communicate with web forums with a
dedicated software client would be a good option to have the best of both
worlds (just like mail).

Even if the web sites/HTML is fantastic and you still see the need for the
clients you can use of your choice (be that fat local client, or your own
prefered web based client). I think RSS is a proof of this need to link and
separte the content access of a web sites and the default web site
presentation/user interface of it. I see no reason why we couldn't do the
same for discussion groups and web forums?

best regards

martin | t

--
martin törnsten - [url]http://martin.tornsten.com/[/url]

"PaulRS" <prschmi@Zverizon.net> skrev i meddelandet
news:bEnW4COosC69-pn2-KU6W61f1wMq4@localhost...[color=blue]
> On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:31:31 UTC, Marty <net@comcast.martyamodeo>[/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Check this out
>
> [url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html[/url][/color]

The good thing with this is that you doesn't get locked in to a particular
service by you internet access provider.

I have always preferd to use my ISPs just like a "bit providers", and not
use them for mail, www-servers, etc. I prefer to use and control my own
services for those things. That way it's always a very easy decsision for me
to change internet provider when I want to (due price/performance ratios,
other changed condictions or circumstances, etc) and not having to worry
that it will affect my other services. It also has the added benefit to let
me pick and choose the "best of the best" of different services for my own
personal needs (web hotel by one serivce provider, email from another, etc).

Last week I terminated my current DSL service contract, as I will use only
my mobile broad band ISP (another ISP than my DSL provider), and I did't
have to worry anything at all about changing mailaddress, mail server, DNS
service, web page adress, web servive solution, etc. Very easy and
transparent decision.

best regards

martin | t

--
martin törnsten - [url]http://martin.tornsten.com/[/url]

"PaulRS" <prschmi@Zverizon.net> writes:[color=blue]
>On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:31:31 UTC, Marty <net@comcast.martyamodeo> wrote:[color=green]
>> I recently dumped Comcast TV for Dish Network and it looks like they're
>> begging me to dump them for internet access as well. In addition to
>> their single product price for internet being more expensive than the
>> same internet service plus basic cable TV (which is bizarre), they've
>> been steadily adding more and more limitations to their internet
>> service. They've added their own Peer to Peer servers on several P2P
>> networks for the purposes of entrapment and foiling even legitimate
>> downloads, and they've imposed total bandwidth limitations per month on
>> their customers. Now newsgroup access is going away (which doesn't even
>> make sense because it's not even their server that they have to
>> maintain, it's handled by Giganews). I'd advise anyone to consider
>> other alternatives than Comcast service. Also, their idea of
>> "multi-platform" consists of XP and Vista as far as their support people
>> are concerned.
>>
>> Here's their message regarding newsgroups to their customers, FYI:
>>
>> As of October 25, 2008, the complimentary Comcast Newsgroups
>> service, powered by Giganews, will be discontinued. This
>> feature provided customers access to 2 gigabytes of newsgroup
>> information on a monthly basis. After this date, these customers
>> will no longer be able to access the Comcast Newsgroups service
>> through Comcast. Customers who have subscribed directly to Giganews
>> for newsgroup access will not be affected by this change.
>>
>> While we have seen a decline in popularity of newsgroups as
>> customers have chosen to get information from other sources, we know
>> a small percentage of our customers continue to use newsgroups
>> today. If you are interested in continuing to access newsgroups,
>> Giganews is offering a special promotion for Comcast customers.
>> To learn more, please visit the link below.
>>[/color]
>
>This just means that NOW you gotta PAY!
> Check this out
>
>[url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html[/url][/color]

Also consider Altopia. $6/month. Been around since 1995.

[url]https://www.altopia.com/[/url]

Chris Caputo
President, Altopia Corporation