Best Value Provider

[dcp]

Right now I'm using a provider who's providing 240 day unlimited broadband 20 SSL connections for USD11/mth. Throughput is an avg 500-700kB/s via HSDPA. I'm sure it'll go much higher than this on the lucky ones with direct fibre/LAN in some countries but this is to date the best value i've found and just happened to stumble upon a link at a site somewhere. Just wondering what rates everyone else is getting.

PS. In case anyone wants the link, PM me.

[Coeluh]

Why can't you just give the link?

[inpheaux]

Why can't you just give the link?

He's probably referring (poorly) to the astraweb kleverig special, which is in no way secret.

In my opinion, there are only three plans worth considering right now for unlimited access. The aforementioned astraweb plan, or either of Giganews' top two plans. Here's the breakdown of the plans right now:

Astraweb - ~190 days of retention (eventually growing to 270, but we don't know when), SSL, great completion, $11/mo.

Giganews - ~200 days of retention (stated as 240, details below), great completion, SSL - $29/mo, no SSL - $25/mo.

Here's the deal with Giganews' retention problems: Usenet is growing fast as hell right now. Between 2007-2009 it's grown from around 3.5 TB/day to 4.75 TB/day. Please take a moment to think about how much data we're talking about. 4.75 TB is over a thousand DVDRs of content. And that much is coming in daily. Giganews' datacenter is no longer able to maintain 240 days of content, because the amount of data "240 days" represents is growing. Right now they seem to be somewhat stable at around 200 days. (You can check by plugging in a group name into this form)

I've spoken with my rep at Giganews and she acknowledged that yes, there are some problems right now, but they're working on solving them. They're in the process of bringing two giant datacenters online very soon, one in LA, one in Amsterdam. Once they bring those online they'll be able to start increasing their retention again, and will be announcing significant upgrades beyond their current target of 240 days, probably somewhere over 300 days to stay competitive.

So, for the short term, Astraweb is the best option due to how cheap they are. For the long term, Giganews is still your best bet.

As for throughput, you're not going to see a problem with that anywhere. pairofdimes did some speed tests awhile back with the three major newsfeed providers (Giganews, Astraweb and Highwinds), Giganews and Astraweb came in at around 20-24 MB/s, Highwinds (specifically Newshosting) came in at 28-35 MB/s. These speeds are so ridiculously fast (megabytes per second, people, not bits in this case) that it will very rarely be an issue worth considering when shopping for a host.

[rollingeyeball]

^^ NICE post.

Just thought I'd add my opinion on the kleverig special, and I believe the general consensus -
It's in no way limited as they say.  Think of it as a permanent offer.

Between 2007-2009 it's grown from around 3.5 TB/day to 4.75 TB/day. Please take a moment to think about how much data we're talking about. 4.75 TB is over a thousand DVDRs of content. And that much is coming in daily.

Where'd you get those stats? that's interesting, and it rings a bell too.

I'm happy with my block purchases with astraweb.
My monthly ISP quota is 40gb
I have total.. maybe 3tb of space, much of which is used.
I do not need monthly payments

I'm Incredibly jealous of the rest of the universes net connections. Large/No quotas and awesome speeds.
I'm stuck on adsl1. yay.

[dcp]

Why can't you just give the link?

I thought the terms and conditions was not to post links to usenet sites? Maybe i misread.. my bad. Why would i want to keep this a secret? But yes, value for money at the moment is the Kleverig Special and at 11 buck a pop.. i think its quite ok. I'm sure their retention will grow like all the others over time and unless the other big provider start competiting on the dollar level.. where else can you get that value for the dollar? A month or so of additional retention doesnt quite warrant twice the price IMHO.

[inpheaux]

I thought the terms and conditions was not to post links to usenet sites? Maybe i misread.. my bad.

Yes, you did. From the rules:

Posting links to things available on Usenet. (This means posting links to NZB's, posting links to Newzbin reports, posting links to reports on other Usenet search-engines, posting links to RSS feeds of NZB's, etc)

Linking to hosts is fine, as they don't talk about what's out there.

[JPA]

Astraweb - ~190 days of retention (eventually growing to 270, but we don't know when), SSL, great completion, $11/mo.

Actually, Astraweb was at 200 days last time I checked. It's going up right now, articles will not expire until they reach 270 days. So we have about 70 days to wait

[BrandonG777]

I'm curious about astraweb, I think I'm going to give them a shot next billing cycle. I'm with Giganews and $30 is a little hard to swallow but I tried newsdemon and their retention like actually less than 170 days. Giganews is MUCH better but I notice they get sketchy over 215ish days. What can I really expect from astra?

[sab12397]

My main concern with Astranews is you can't cancel via an automated/specific option online. 

You have to submit a ticket and hope someone actions it. 

Does anyone have any experience of cancelling Astranews?

Are they usually reliable?

Thanks

[qwerty967]

Does anyone have any experience of cancelling Astranews?

Are they usually reliable?

Thanks

I submitted a ticket to cancel my account, and they responded immediately. They have an incentive to act quickly because chargebacks are a hassle for businesses.

[eladriano]

In my opinion there really is no real choice.  Astra is at 220+ retention and just announced a few days ago that it's growing to 365 days! I've been using it for about 5 months now and am very satisfied.  I also jumped on board the $11 special.  For those that say they aren't happy with the auto renewal mechanism take note that you can cancel the auto renew from your paypal account. Astra > Giga 

[inpheaux]

In my opinion there really is no real choice.  Astra is at 220+ retention and just announced a few days ago that it's growing to 365 days! I've been using it for about 5 months now and am very satisfied.  I also jumped on board the $11 special.  For those that say they aren't happy with the auto renewal mechanism take note that you can cancel the auto renew from your paypal account. Astra > Giga

Astraweb is great, but I have serious doubts that Astraweb has the infrastructure in place to spool all the way up to 365 days. Before going public about the year of retention Giganews had to first scale back their retention due to the massive amount of data involved with Usenet these days (falling from 240 days to ~190). To fix the problem and make sure they'll be set for a full year of retention, and be able to sustain it, Giganews had to make significant upgrades across the board. They opened two brand new datacenters in LA and Amsterdam, and made significant upgrades to their Austin headquarters. That requires a massive investment and significant planning to make sure you can keep up with the kind of growth in traffic Usenet is experiencing.

Giganews is telling us specifically what they did, and the specific numbers involved, explaining why this is non-trivial. Astraweb is just saying "yeah, we upgraded. 365? yeah, we can do that too." If Astraweb isn't adequately prepared, they may never hit a full year, and even if they do, might eventually have to pull back as usenet continues expanding.

[rAf]

Newshosting announced 250 days of retention (growing since january currently about 220 days)
I appreciate the fact that you can suscribe for 6 month or 1 year (about 16$/month).
No problems since 1 year...

[eladriano]

Giganews is telling us specifically what they did, and the specific numbers involved, explaining why this is non-trivial. Astraweb is just saying "yeah, we upgraded. 365? yeah, we can do that too." If Astraweb isn't adequately prepared, they may never hit a full year, and even if they do, might eventually have to pull back as usenet continues expanding.

I understand what your saying.  It would suck if when 365 days finally rolls around all the files were incomplete ect. But in Astra's defense they did announce that they completed an infrastructure upgrade to increase their retention storage to 365 days.  So at the rate data is coming in these days they have enough room for 365 days.  Unless some new medium comes along like Ultra High Definition Video (20 mins at that res is 3.5TB lol) I think they should be fine.

[inpheaux]

So at the rate data is coming in these days they have enough room for 365 days.  Unless some new medium comes along like Ultra High Definition Video (20 mins at that res is 3.5TB lol) I think they should be fine.

Have you seen the graph? Yes, the sharp upturn from 2007 -> 2008 is likely due to the rise of HD video, but it was growing steadily enough before that. If astraweb just did a snapshot and said "well, we're pulling 5.5Tb/day now, so we just need 2 petabytes of storage!" then they'll never actually make it to 365 days since the rate ~150 days from now will be significantly higher. And the rate ~150 days after that will be even higher. Unless you make significant preparations there's no way you'll be able to keep up, and I'm just not seeing that level of commitment from Astraweb. It might be due to a lack of transparency, or it might be due to the fact that it actually isn't there, can't know that yet.