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RCN Cancels Newsgroups, Tells No One
Apparently assumed users would figure it out...
RCN users in our forums are discovering that RCN has joined the growing number of ISPs who no longer offer newgsroup services. That's not particularly surprising, given the dwindling numbers of Usenet users, a wide variety of dedicated newsgroup shops, and the industry's consistent efforts to cut corners. What annoys users however, is that RCN never bothered to tell anyone they were phasing the service out. "First you raise my rate by $30 a month, then you cut off news.rcn.com without so much as an email notice, forcing me to purchase an alternative news service, and next you will force me to rent additional cable boxes for all the TVs in the house," complains one regular user.
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Bellundo
@teksavvy.com

Bellundo

Anon

Usenet is as strong as ever

Usenet has never been stronger. Why the demand is so great you may see the pay services such as giganews raising their rates. If not for the sorry state of the US economy they would have raised them by now. Getting back to RCN yes it's a sad day for subscribers and RCN is completly to blame. It just doesn't seem right cutting off an essential service without a plausible explanation. The line about this kiddy porn bit is getting old fast. These isp's have duped their subscribers out of a much needed service and most of them haven't reduced their rates. Sinister that's what it is!
Cod2
join:2000-07-05
Kernersville, NC

Cod2

Member

raise rates $30 a month?

Is that accurate? How and what did they increase by $30?
bandwidthhog1
join:2002-07-18
Irwin, PA

1 edit

bandwidthhog1

Member

RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

My father had telephone and dialup service with RCN. Recently he switched his RCN dialup access to RCN DSL broadband. The appointment was on the Friday before Labor Day. The installer showed up, looked at the box outside for 5 minutes, said he didn't have the proper equipment for the install. The equipment he was missing was a drill. He reschedules the appointment for the following Tuesday. Over the weekend my fathers telephone service goes out and no one at RCN could apparently restore it until the installer shows up on Tuesday. Tuesday comes, a different installer shows and it's his first day on the job! He has as no idea how to proceed to install the DSL without a dial tone being present. Long story to short, after the installer spends 5 hours onsite and a 3 day weekend where my 90 year old father and his wife were without telephone service, my father finally has DSL. No offer of compensation from RCN and no appology. Truly an ISP to stay away from based on my fathers experience with them.

POB
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit
Premium Member
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA

POB

Premium Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

said by bandwidthhog1:

Truly an ISP to stay away from based on my fathers experience with them.
Notwithstanding cutting off newsgroup service without notice, the fact that your father lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania probably goes a long long way that the first tech showed up without a drill and the second was a n00b. Long ago I lived in bumblefuck PA as well and every single local representing a large company like RCN was an ignorant hillbilly.
bandwidthhog1
join:2002-07-18
Irwin, PA

bandwidthhog1

Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

Actually my father lives in Silver Spring a northern Maryland suburb of Washington DC.

jbgroup1
Non Conformist
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
Dayton, MD

1 edit

jbgroup1

Premium Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

said by bandwidthhog1:

...Silver Spring a northern Maryland suburb of Washington DC.
A central Marylnd Suburb north of Washington, DC.

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

1 edit

Karl Bode to bandwidthhog1

News Guy

to bandwidthhog1
quote:
Recently he switched his RCN dialup access to RCN DSL broadband.
RCN DSL?

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

1 edit

CylonRed

MVM

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

said by Karl Bode:

quote:
Recently he switched his RCN dialup access to RCN DSL broadband.
RCN DSL?
I tried to figure that out myself... I eventually gave up.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned) to bandwidthhog1

Member

to bandwidthhog1
I had dial up with Erols Internet. It was the best service I ever had. As soon as RCN/Starpower bought them, the service became crap, the rates increased and I dumped them.

jbgroup1
Non Conformist
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
Dayton, MD

jbgroup1

Premium Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

I had Erol's dial-up right before I had broadband internet. They also had a video rental store chain in the Washington, DC area. Unfortunately it was ruined while they waited for Blockbuster to buy them out but it never happened. After that they went under.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

said by jbgroup1:

I had Erol's dial-up right before I had broadband internet. They also had a video rental store chain in the Washington, DC area. Unfortunately it was ruined while they waited for Blockbuster to buy them out but it never happened. After that they went under.
Huh? Erols was bought out by Blockbuster. Blockbuster paid so much that they had no money left over to convert the stores so they did it one by one.

jbgroup1
Non Conformist
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
Dayton, MD

jbgroup1

Premium Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

Hmmh! You're right. I was under the impression that Blockbuster didn't buy them. Erol's was still ruined by the Blockbuster deal IMO. They were just never the same afterward.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

Re: RCN - Not an ISP I'd Ever Go With...

I used to live in Takoma Park before I moved to Baltimore. Erols was the best video rental store. There was an article in the Washington Post about how Blockbuster still ran Erols as a separate company because of the cost.

Their internet service was very good and they always told you of scheduled maintenance or outages.

Kooly
@rcn.com

Kooly to jbgroup1

Anon

to jbgroup1
I too had Erols, and I'm still with RCN. Who's the alternative in DC, Comcast?

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT

SimbaSeven

Member

No newsgroups?

Why would you cancel newsgroups? I'd be ticked if my ISP pulled this.

Oh wait.. The less news you get, the less of a threat you are. It's a darn conspiracy.

frankenfeet
934 is 10-8
Premium Member
join:2001-10-14
Smiths Grove, KY

1 recommendation

frankenfeet

Premium Member

Re: No newsgroups?

said by SimbaSeven:

Why would you cancel newsgroups? I'd be ticked if my ISP pulled this.

Oh wait.. The less news you get, the less of a threat you are. It's a darn conspiracy.
Yeah, news. That's what people are downloading. LOL

Chiyo
Save Me Konata-Chan
Premium Member
join:2003-02-20
Salisbury, NC

Chiyo

Premium Member

Re: No newsgroups?

I enjoy my 4.7GB packets of news.. Umm its very, very, very good looking version of the Wall Street Journal

Attack Gypsy
join:2007-05-10
Milford, CT

Attack Gypsy

Member

Newsgroups

People say newsgroups are stronger than ever. I disagree.

I used to work for a large cable service. In the year and a half I was there, I got exactly 2 newsgroups calls, and they were both about outages.

2 calls compared to over 20,000 calls taken? If newsgroups are so popular, the law of averages doesn't seem to working here.

I had other associates who had never fielded a single newsgroups call.

(This is not a newsgroups bash, I love them myself.)

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

1 recommendation

n2jtx

Member

Re: Newsgroups

said by Attack Gypsy:

I used to work for a large cable service. In the year and a half I was there, I got exactly 2 newsgroups calls, and they were both about outages.
Might it be possible that USENET users are a bit more technically savvy than your typical web surfer? It generally requires a bit of technical competence to set up your reader since most ISP's don't even document the process.

Attack Gypsy
join:2007-05-10
Milford, CT

Attack Gypsy

Member

Re: Newsgroups

Believe me, not these people. Our users were some of the stupidest people in the whole bloody world. Trust me on that.

Extreme2KEclipse
@rocassociates.com

Extreme2KEclipse to Attack Gypsy

Anon

to Attack Gypsy
Or that they were just so darn reliable?

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to Attack Gypsy

Member

to Attack Gypsy
We silently dropped our Newsgroups 5 years ago. It was almost 6 months before I got the first ticket. Someone took the number of customers who used newsgroups and divided it by what we were paying and it worked out to over $100 per newsgroup user.

When I signed users up the call went like this.

Me: "You also get newsgroup access"
Newbie: "Oh you mean like cnn.com?"
Me; "Uhhh, yea."

I finally stopped mentioning newsgroups.

axelrose
Cottage Cheese is my Favorite food!!
join:2005-05-25
Chattanooga, TN

axelrose to Attack Gypsy

Member

to Attack Gypsy
said by Attack Gypsy:

People say newsgroups are stronger than ever. I disagree.

I used to work for a large cable service. In the year and a half I was there, I got exactly 2 newsgroups calls, and they were both about outages.

2 calls compared to over 20,000 calls taken? If newsgroups are so popular, the law of averages doesn't seem to working here.

I had other associates who had never fielded a single newsgroups call.

(This is not a newsgroups bash, I love them myself.)
Could it be that most of the people who know how to use Usenet are on the higher end of Internet Literacy?

I imagine most ISP calls are like, "My Youtube stopped working, halp plz"

Or, "I can't access my facebook from work."
kd6cae
P2p Shouldn't Be A Crime
join:2001-08-27
Bakersfield, CA

kd6cae

Member

What happens to the news server systems?

For about a year I was on the Cox network, and I downloaded headers from their news server which was on network, to check how my line speed was doing. What I'm curious to know is when these ISP's discontinue offering their own in house news server, what happens to the hardware use to run the servers? I'm also curious how many distinct and separate usenet networks there are now, since most if not all ISP's don't run a news server at all anymore, and many usenet providers are merely resellers of the big guys like Giganews. Just something I've wondered about. The concept of how usenet works is quite neat I think.b
Maggs
Premium Member
join:2002-11-29
Jackson Heights, NY

Maggs

Premium Member

Why dump resources

into a declining market. Good for RCN. News.rcn.com was useless, most of the stuff on USENET is garbage headers and ads.

BackDrop
@telus.net

BackDrop

Anon

No notice what so ever

Yup, my ISP did the same thing. No notice what so ever. Of course when I emailed them, they gave the speech about its not part of the service. Not part of the service, for 10 years?!? How is that posable? Been using ISP NG's since the dial up days, then BANG left for the buzzards. Soon all you will be able to do is check email and pay per click web browsing. LOL

instance
@optonline.net

instance

Anon

where you cancel the account

RCN shouldn't be the only dsl provider in rurual PA..
Verizon and other carriers should be present as options. Whether you'll get dsl, or any other broadband out of them is another story, but it couldn't hurt to try. If that fails, you need to start putting some political pressure to bring other carriers to deploy service. Invite comcast, cablevision, cox, time warner, charter, etc. If there is a potential for ROI, a network may get deployed. On a parallel track, you should make sure that your state is encouraging fiber backbone lines get laid across PA so that there is a compelling reason to bring service to the community. If the backbone service is hundreds of miles away... your screwed.