said by Endian :

they are discontinuing the newsgroup service due to low subscriber usage.

said by RonR :

Which explains why the service is so heavily overloaded as of late. What a crock!

said by Endian :

Road Runner has announced that effective June 23, 2008 that they are discontinuing the newsgroup service due to low subscriber usage. This info can be found on Road Runner's membership web site. It's located under Important Announcements. What are they going to get rid of next?

said by Tommyastro :

I thought it was just the groups that cater to child porn? Which I imagine are used by only a few, very sick people. I have not heard they are doing away with all newsgroups.

said by rcdailey :

How many customers will be driven away? TWC must have an idea of how many usenet subscribers they currently have. Is usenet the big draw for FiOS, where that is available? The number of customers TWC will lose may not cost them as much as they will save by simply not having to support usenet either via their own servers or by outsourcing. At some level, the bean counters win and the customers lose. I wonder what Calvin Coolidge would think?

said by Xizer :

Time Warner has over 7 million Usenet subscribers.

said by djrobx :

AT&T/SBC/Pacbell has never really had binary usenet service to speak of anyway. DSLExtreme offers good, albeit slow, binary newsgroup service.

said by rcdailey :

Then I guess we will see how many switch to some other ISP. I'm one of the 7 million, but I'm not going to bother switching from TWC to AT&T DSL (which is all I could get here, no FiOS, not even U-verse).

said by damicatz :

And this is why I'm getting a bonded T1.

It may be slower and it may be more expensive but it's not run by a bunch of Orwellian fascists that dictate what I can and cannot do with the internet connection that I PAID FOR.

said by antdude :

How much is it? Is bonded same as fractal?

said by MacLeech :

Fractal is partial T1 or a T1 broken into multiple connections.

Bonded is multiple T1s together.

said by damicatz :

And this is why I'm getting a bonded T1.

It may be slower and it may be more expensive but it's not run by a bunch of Orwellian fascists that dictate what I can and cannot do with the internet connection that I PAID FOR.

said by damicatz :

No a T1 does not provide Newsgroups. But they don't lie to you either.

Time Warner's newsgroups were always crap. I'm more irritated about the fact that they seem to take me for a fool and that I'm supposed to believe the reasons they give for discontinuing them.

There is also the matter of the censorship. In the same paragraph, Time Warner stated that they both don't censor websites and will happily block access to websites on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children s list of "dangerous" websites. If you are going to lie, at least separate the lies out into different paragraphs.

I don't like the idea of an independent body with no oversight having arbitrary discretion on what constitutes a dangerous website.

And of course, there is the bandwidth tiering. Perhaps if Roadrunner would stop increasing the speed cap on the modems without upgrading their infrastructure first, they would not be having so many issues.

A dual-bonded T1 (Approx. 3mbps both ways) costs roughly $600 a month in my area. But it's worth every penny. No censorship. No bandwidth tiers. 24/7/365 service and the data rate is guaranteed through an SLA (if your connection is running below the speed you are paying for, they will come out and fix it). Of course, you can also go the UNE route and then it's much cheaper.

I currently pay Time Warner roughly $250 a month (multiple digital cable boxes, digital phone, Roadrunner Turbo/Premium). It's looking like it's time to scrap all of that

said by damicatz :

No a T1 does not provide Newsgroups. But they don't lie to you either.

Time Warner's newsgroups were always crap. I'm more irritated about the fact that they seem to take me for a fool and that I'm supposed to believe the reasons they give for discontinuing them.

There is also the matter of the censorship. In the same paragraph, Time Warner stated that they both don't censor websites and will happily block access to websites on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children s list of "dangerous" websites. If you are going to lie, at least separate the lies out into different paragraphs.

I don't like the idea of an independent body with no oversight having arbitrary discretion on what constitutes a dangerous website.

And of course, there is the bandwidth tiering. Perhaps if Roadrunner would stop increasing the speed cap on the modems without upgrading their infrastructure first, they would not be having so many issues.

A dual-bonded T1 (Approx. 3mbps both ways) costs roughly $600 a month in my area. But it's worth every penny. No censorship. No bandwidth tiers. 24/7/365 service and the data rate is guaranteed through an SLA (if your connection is running below the speed you are paying for, they will come out and fix it). Of course, you can also go the UNE route and then it's much cheaper.

I currently pay Time Warner roughly $250 a month (multiple digital cable boxes, digital phone, Roadrunner Turbo/Premium). It's looking like it's time to scrap all of that

said by damicatz :

I don't like the idea of an independent body with no oversight having arbitrary discretion on what constitutes a dangerous website.

said by Xizer :

[Time Warner has over 7 million Usenet subscribers.

said by The Vigilante :

These are, of course, the people who tell you that moving a channel to a tier where subscribers now require to rent a digital box is "A channel service level correction"

»www.timewarnercable.com/socal/pr···rts.html

said by hobgoblin :

What?

I have read some inaccurate stuff on here before but that has to be one of the most ludicrous statements I have read.

Try less than 28,000 hits a day.

Hob

said by hobgoblin :

What?

I have read some inaccurate stuff on here before but that has to be one of the most ludicrous statements I have read.

Try less than 28,000 hits a day.

Hob

said by hobgoblin :

Of course this site attracts a handful of people that are tech savvy and think that the whole world is like them.

Newsgroups are only being used for nefarious activities anyway and that fits into this site well.

Hob

said by Xizer :

Time Warner has over 7 million Usenet subscribers.

said by smcallah :

I'm going to say... no.

It's already public knowledge that after the Adelphia merger that Time Warner cable has around 15 million cable TV subscribers. Who in their right mind would think that half of all those are usenet "subscribers?"

said by Xizer :

Someone who is aware of the fact that every single person who subscribes to their Internet service is also subscribing to a Usenet service by proxy because Time Warner provides all of their Internet subscribers with outsourced Newshosting.com Usenet access.

Whether they're actually taking advantage of this service and using it or not doesn't mean they're not "subscribed" to it.

Try reading the thread next time.

said by smcallah :

Yes, I read the thread, that doesn't make the comment any less stupid because of semantics. And THAT is why I was commenting. And it does matter that no one is using it. RoadRunner shut down video mail, or whatever the crap that was a few months ago. I didn't see the uproar for the 7 million "subscribers" then.

Thanks for telling me to "try reading." So original.

said by RR User :

Are they trying to kill the internet?

said by another RR user :

I see it going this way... RR will soon offer NG access for monthly fee. The cost of the service (just like their digital phone service) will be much more costly than the alternatives (like Vonage), but there's enough average J. Q. Public out there who won't notice and sign up anyway. My guess is it will be offered at $10/month for, say, 20GB, or something crazy like that.

said by hobgoblin :

"Are you and hobgoblin part of the team Time Warner has assigned to try and limit consumer outrage over this or something?'

I am still looking for consumer outrage!
In fact I am still looking through your posts for some facts.

said by hobgoblin :

"I knew you would avoid the question. Soooo predictable."

I am in no position to make public statements which is what you asked.

If you look back earlier in the week the story about the removal of newsgroups was posted on the Front page before the NY AG tried to rope the two things in together.

Of course Newsgroup access will be available to anyone who decides to use any 3rd party usenet servers.

Hob

said by vick04 :

Can anyone tell me what im going to be missing besides the access to copyrighted material? The company's Time Warner listed as alternatives charge $5 and up for Usenet access. Whats worth paying a min of $5 a month and is not illegal? text conversations? come on..

said by maartena :

I am not a heavy usenet user, but have been using it on and off for many years. I generally only use it a couple of times a month, so it isn't worth it to me to start paying $10 or more a month for a service I don't use enough.

said by Anon Name :

The mainstream media has no idea what they are talking about when they discuss newsgroups. But I am seeing the phrase "blocking all access" being used on tech Web sites, which should know the difference between TWC no longer providing its OWN newsgroup service and blocking service completely.