On 4/01/2012 11:11 AM, Mike Muth wrote:
> > wrote:
>
>> On 2 Jan 2012 20:26:07 GMT, Mike Muth wrote:
>>
>>> That's certainly one possibility. The bandwidth issues could be
>>> upstream of the news server. Usenet traffic has dropped off in
>>> recent years,
>>
>> It has increased exponentially in the last 10 years.
>
> Binary traffic has. Text groups have mostly declined.
>
>>> so any established server should be able to handle the continuing
>>> load without upgrades for anything but security.
>>
>> Usenet servers are constantly increasing their storage space and
>> bandwidth (when available).
>
> Binaries are driving that. Especially now that people are using more
> wasteful .mkv encoding.
>
>>> Of course, the
>>> provider could be re-purposing equipment or simply failing to replace
>>> items as they fail.
>>
>> Uh, not likely unless you're tearing down your news service completely
>> (as was the case with ISP-based news servers 2-7 years ago).
>
> People still use ISP-based news servers. They haven't gone away.
>
>>> Another possibility is that they (or their connection provider) have
>>> reduced their bandwidth.
>
>> Never happens.
>
> It does indeed. A short while before AT&T got rid of their usenet
> servers (around a dozen years ago), bandwidth was cut way back. Others
> have done the same thing. Providers prioritize traffic. Usenet is not
> up there and that has the same effect as cutting bandwidth.
>
> I've been places where all nntp traffic was blocked by firewalls. My
> provider did that. It wasn't for lack of bandwidth, either. We had 6
> gigabits of bandwidth for unclassified traffic - for around 2,000
> computers.
>
> Commercially, large providers would prefer that people buy their
> downloads, so they discourage usenet
>
>>> Still, Usenet doesn't need that much bandwidth.
>>
>> I don't what planet you live on, but that is completely false.
>
> It doesn't.
>
>> Why do you think most people now have to PAY for usenet whereas
>> previously it was free?
>
> It was free when it was bundled by ISPs, provided by corporations,
> univesities and DARPA, or subsidized like individual.net was. There
> have been pay for use usenet servers for at least 20 years. I've been
> using one for 17 years.

It's never really been free. The cost of the traffic was always paid for
by someone, somewhere. For universities, at least in recent years, it
was a service probably provided from student fees. My Govt. department
dumped the service years ago when they began to restrict the types of
access employees had. NNTP was one of the first services to get the
flick. It was probably just simply blocked at the firewall. Up until
recently it was a subsidiary service provided by my ISP, Optus. They've
deemed it unworthwhile and have dumped it. I don't know how many users
of NNTP Optus had but very few of the people I deal with on a daily
basis have even the slightest clue what newsgroups are. Most are even
ignorant of Google Groups (though that can only be a good thing!).
>
>> You are totally forgetting Usenet is a huge binary repository for
>> downloading and uploading. There is more bandwidth and storage
>> required every day compared to the previous day.
>
> No, I'm not. I was addressing text traffic only.

I've never used NNTP for binary traffic. Text has been my only need.
>
>>> At it's peak
>>> popularity, much of Usenet's traffic was carried over 64k circuits.
>>> That much bandwidth would be more than enough today
>
>> Can we quote you on that?
>
> Since I was talking about text traffic, yes.
>
>


--

Krypsis