jaymz668
join:2002-03-21
Bloomington, IN
| reply to CableTool
Re: The Comcast Newsgroups Service Discontinued
said by CableTool  :Did your rate increase $7.99 when newsgroup access was added to accounts? "hahahaha I doubt it." No, it was part of the base price, all the way back to @Home days. |
|
kenshell
join:2004-01-21
Woodbridge, NJ
 ·Comcast
| reply to CableTool
Did Comcast get it for free from Giganews?
said by CableTool :said by beerbum :so will Comcast be reducing our bills since the equivalent service from Giganews is $7.99 per month? Did your rate increase $7.99 when newsgroup access was added to accounts? "hahahaha I doubt it." Also when did Comcast raise CHSI prices? Now you have to pay $8.00 a month for service you were previously getting for free. Chances are you will not and many will not. |
|
axelrose
Ban Tornadoes
join:2005-05-25
Chattanooga, TN | reply to beerbum
Where did you get that Newsgroup Ranking listing? |
|
sheiker
join:2006-12-05
Prior Lake, MN
| reply to beerbum
Are you sure you have those stats right?
They seem an order of magnitude "low"...
Just guessing here, but I believe those groups you list are probably pumping 200 G's a day when added together.
Which is why a lot of ISPs dropped the binary groups a long time ago, or have a 1-2 day retention... There is simply too much data on those groups except for the dedicated Usenet companies. |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to beerbum
said by beerbum :as of now, the daily total traffic on usenet is in the neighborhood of 14-17 gig per day.. filter out the binaries and most of us here have hardware that could handle the traffic.. Most of you there don't have an Internet connection that can handle the traffic. You'd have to pay for hosting with the likes of Sprint, LimeLight Networks, NAC, et. al., to carry your traffic. Hosting isn't free; and, when your traffic exceeds the bandwidth you paid for, you are offline until the end of the billing cycle; unless you want to fork over extra $$$.
However, you are pointing out why Comcast *could* have followed AT&T. It just happens that AT&T only stopped carrying the binary groups; mostly the 'alt.binaries.*' hierarchy. Not the first time that Comcast has taken a different tack than they could have.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
beerbum
Premium
join:2000-05-06
Reading, PA
clubs:
| reply to NormanS
said by NormanS :said by beerbum :You know what is really sad? The actual costs involved to run usenet - minus the binary groups - are minimal.. A couple quad core computers and one or two TB for storage could handle it - with a greater than 30 day retention - again, minus the binary groups. Then what happened to all of the free NNTP providers? Why did Supernews sell out to Giganews? binaries.. all the warez, porn, videos, music.. all that shit is what killed / is killing usenet.. here.. some stats you may find interesting..
that snapshot is showing that 25 newsgroups account for 2,160 MB.. or 2.1 gigabytes per day.. this is only a small handful of groups..
notice they are all binary newsgroups.. I don't have stats for non-binary groups handy (yet) but I doubt if you add up traffic on all the non binary groups the total would still be less than group #25 above..
as of now, the daily total traffic on usenet is in the neighborhood of 14-17 gig per day.. filter out the binaries and most of us here have hardware that could handle the traffic.. |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to beerbum
said by beerbum :You know what is really sad? The actual costs involved to run usenet - minus the binary groups - are minimal.. A couple quad core computers and one or two TB for storage could handle it - with a greater than 30 day retention - again, minus the binary groups. Then what happened to all of the free NNTP providers? Why did Supernews sell out to Giganews?
You have to consider the Internet access, too. NNTP providers need access to transit, and sufficient transit capacity to handle the access load on their servers.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to funchords
As did AT&T, which removed the entire 'alt.binaries.*' hierarchy from their NNTP servers.
Oddly, Cuomo brags that he "forced" AOL to "toe the line", as well; yet AOL had already discontinued NNTP service a couple of years before he forced them to. Does he have a supply of 'thiotimoline' stashed somewhere?
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
beerbum
Premium
join:2000-05-06
Reading, PA
clubs:
| reply to funchords
said by funchords : That would be late 2002 or early 2003, but it would not be accurate to say that news was added to Comcast. Comcast (legacy) and AT&T Broadband merged, becoming AT&T Comcast, and then simply Comcast. That would be early 2001.. I was working for AT&T when Comcast gobbled us up.. From the beginning Comcast offered usenet on their own servers.. |
|
beerbum
Premium
join:2000-05-06
Reading, PA
clubs:
| reply to tcope
said by tcope :So Comcast offered Internet service without Usenet when they first started? Also, your statement is flawed in that the cost to deliver service has become less expensive. Granted, service has increased as well. But let's look at reality for a moment... when Usenet started it too very little resources. It's resources have increased and so has the cost of Internet access. You really think Comcast has never increased it's price due to the resources of Usenet? You know what is really sad? The actual costs involved to run usenet - minus the binary groups - are minimal..
A couple quad core computers and one or two TB for storage could handle it - with a greater than 30 day retention - again, minus the binary groups.
All they needed to do was drop the binaries.. Although I bet that was not an option available from Giganews..
Believe it or not, usenet was never intended to be a file service - it is a discussion service. |
|
beerbum
Premium
join:2000-05-06
Reading, PA
clubs:
| reply to CableTool
said by CableTool :When News groups were added originally there was no price increase. So removing it would not merit a price reduction. Really? I'd like to know when because as I recall, Comcast started HSI with usenet access included - from their own news servers.
It wasn't until later on they decided to outsource to Giganews.. |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Skype
| reply to espaeth
said by espaeth :Pricing isn't set on a per address basis; it's based on the service area your address would reside in. As long as there is competition within your service area (which there almost always is), there are at least 2 services to compete on price. That's still pretty far from a market, but your point is valid. It's also true the $42.95 is worth less now than it was 4 years ago -- so the price has dropped somewhat. ObTopic -- both Comcast and Verizon caved in to Cuomo, Verizon a bit differently -- »News: Verizon KILLING their News Server!!!
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
More features, more fun, Join BroadbandReports.com, it's free...
|
|
espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
·Comcast
·Embarq
2 edits | reply to funchords
said by funchords :This "artificial"-ness runs both ways when there are only 0, 1, or 2 choices for any particular address. It takes a market to create market forces. Pricing isn't set on a per address basis; it's based on the service area your address would reside in. As long as there is competition within your service area (which there almost always is), there are at least 2 services to compete on price. |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
| reply to NormanS
said by NormanS :So your local franchise agency artificially forced Comcast to offer the service at a lower price than they offered it elsewhere. Government controlled prices are not "normal", and prices rising to the market level, when the government relinquishes controls, does not a "price hike" make. This "artificial"-ness runs both ways when there are only 0, 1, or 2 choices for any particular address. It takes a market to create market forces.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
More features, more fun, Join BroadbandReports.com, it's free...
|
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to quetwo
So your local franchise agency artificially forced Comcast to offer the service at a lower price than they offered it elsewhere. Then Comcast was able to convince them that it was unfair to force them to offer service "at cost"; probably offered to take their toys to other markets, and leave them with dead coax on the poles. So the franchise agency chose to allow Comcast to charge you what they already charged everybody else.
Government controlled prices are not "normal", and prices rising to the market level, when the government relinquishes controls, does not a "price hike" make.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
TheBigCheese
join:2002-08-05
Voorhees, NJ
| reply to CableTool
said by CableTool :said by beerbum : Did your rate increase $7.99 when newsgroup access was added to accounts? "hahahaha I doubt it." There was always newsgroup access in my area from day one. Then Comcast took over from Excite@home. At that time, you had unlimited downloads. Then Comcast outsourced the service and only allowed 2GB/month.
Some ISP's are eliminating email and personal web pages so I guess soon we will see an announcement that Myspace has taken over from personal web pages and GMail is available for free so all that will be left is raw Internet access. |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to jbob
said by jbob :Every ISP I have ever had offered NNTP as part of the package. When I started with Astragate, a dial-up ISP available in the S.F. Bay Area, in 1999, they did not offer NNTP service until a couple of months after we signed up.
NNTP service has a cost to carry it, and I suspect most ISPs offered a very small budget to maintain it. Which is why most ISP news service was crappy. SBC took over Prodigy, and ran the old Prodigy (excellent) news service into the ground. Guess which company was more profitable before the takeover? SBC took over AT&T (Worldnet Service), and is running the old AT&T (Worldnet Service, excellent) news service into the ground. Guess which company was more profitable before the takeover? SBC started calling themselves, "AT&T", after taking over AT&T. SBC never had good, or even just "decent", NNTP service. And they just killed all of 'alt.binaries.*' last July.
AOL stopped carrying NNTP service years ago, yet just last June, or so, they acceded to Mario Cuomo's demands. Why? Because if they did not, he'd take them to court to force them to stop doing what they had long not been doing. Companies are in business for profit, not principle. While Cuomo is wrong, in principle, it would cost money to prove it in court; a cost which would deprecate profit. So AOL chose "profit" over "principle", and agreed to join Cuomo in announcing that they would no longer do that which they had already stopped doing years ago. And AT&T, rather than facing the court costs of fighting Cuomo, also announced that they were joining his "initiative". And Comcast...
None of the ISPs were making money off of NNTP service. They weren't losing money, but they weren't making any, either.
Do you know what happened to the free NNTP services? They were "labors of love", run by people who had a little extra money. When the world beat paths to their servers, they couldn't cover the costs of the bandwidth, and the server capacity; they folded.
And what happened to Supernews? They were a premium NNTP provider, but they ultimately couldn't cover their cost of operation, and were bought by Giganews. The premium services still standing have to cover their costs of operation, or they will go under. That is just the nature of private enterprise.
Robert Anson Heinlein understood that, when he coined the "TANSTAAFL" acronym in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to mogulman
said by mogulman :AT&T used to have their own news servers. Then they moved it to giganews. If they are going to remove this function of the internet, they should reduce the price they are charging. AT&T (Worldnet Service) has always run their own NNTP servers. Now that SBC runs the show, they have two NNTP server farms: ATTW (which also covers AT&T Southeast, the old Bellsouth), and ATTIS (which used to be Prodigy).
Perhaps you are confusing ATTBI with "T"?
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
quetwo
That VoIP Guy
Premium
join:2004-09-04
East Lansing, MI
| reply to Cabal
I won't post a copy of my bill (it's been a year and a half since the increase).
Our municipality had the rate capped at 37.99 until 6/07. After that time, it went up $5 to the new rate of 42.95. No explaniation other than a renew of the municipality agreement. |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
3 edits | reply to CableTool
said by CableTool :said by Doctor Olds :said by CableTool :When News groups were added originally there was no price increase. So removing it would not merit a price reduction. What exact date range was Usenet "added originally" by Comcast? You do know Usenet existed before WWW, right?  I didnt say Comcast invented Newsgroups... did you read any of this thread? Some readers incorrectly think of the Internet as distinct services -- WWW, Usenet, FTP, eMail, Instant Messaging, BitTorrent -- that are turned on and turned off.
Doctor Olds ,
These services are reached via the Internet, but they're not the Internet. Historically, ISPs have provided local servers providing some popular services as part of their Internet access package (especially when doing so would reduce cost for them, but also for competitive reasons).
Competition is gone now. As for their other motivations, read this: »Old News, and Consumers are Missing the Point
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
More features, more fun, Join BroadbandReports.com, it's free...
|
|
