Plusnet NNTP problems

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
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159,534
Hey all,

I use Usenet a lot. For its original intended purpose - text groups.

Unfortunately, this last week, it's been so slow it's unusable. I've tried both Plusnets own server, and I've also signed up for an account with a third party supplier, and still it's ridiculously slow. We are talking 10 minutes+ to download 500 headers in uk.railway.

Any ideas what is going on here?
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Jul 2003
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Dundee
isnt there a limit as to how much you can download from the nntp servers? and also what speed? (e.g. 512kb even if you have 1mbp/2mbp)
 
Man of Honour
OP
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I'm on 512k but download limits are very unlikely to affect me - each Usenet article is only 1-2kb!

It works, its just VERY slow even if I use an external server.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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1,691
For what its worth, I also use the plusnet newsgroups but (fingers crossed) have seen no noticeable slow downs or connectivity problems lately.

Now the e-mail server on the other hand....
 
Man of Honour
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OllyM said:
It's probably Plusnet throttling you :(

Especially if it's happening with their own Usenet servers and an external provider...

Why are they doing this and how can I sort it?

Why on earth is text usenet being throttled even if I use another provider, if I view 2000 messages I'll only download 2mb :confused:
 
Soldato
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[TW]Fox said:
Why are they doing this and how can I sort it?

Why on earth is text usenet being throttled even if I use another provider, if I view 2000 messages I'll only download 2mb :confused:

It would be because it would be coming up on your connection as traffic from Usenet, so it's throttled anyway.

Binary or text it will still get delivered to you in the same way.
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2003
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16,057
Maybe you could test for throttling by getting a friend to put up a temporary FTP server on port 119 rather than 21 and seeing what speeds you get downloading from it compared to if it was on port 21.

Granted the speed would be limited by their upstream connection but if you're only getting a fraction of that then it's a fair bet that Plusnet are throttling NNTP connections.
 
Man of Honour
OP
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So are Plusnet throttling ALL NNTP connections to a speed so low its unusable, then?

If so, why do they even provide a usenet text feed if nobody can use it?
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2004
Posts
6,324
Location
New Jersey, USA
Because they're a shabby ISP now.

I'd seriously recommend taking a look at the market with a view to migrating out - there are much much better deals around now where you can actually use your connection how you want to.
 
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