Newsgroup Provider

[markus101]

Hi,

I've been having issues with Newshosting recently, just opened a ticket with them now.
I usually see 1200+ KB/s, recently (Since Nov-28-2008 in the afternoon), i've seen some pretty garbage speeds (500-600KB/s).

I just to know if anyone is having the speed issues with Newshosting as of late and if anyone has any recommendations for another provider, Giganews sounds appealing, but at 2x the cost of Newshosting (and 240 days retention is a bit more than I need, for now at least).

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, hopefully the Newshosting issues gets sorted out, but having a fallback plan would be nice. I'm probably going to try out the Giganews trial (just to make sure my ISP isn't throttling the connections), I've also looked at the pricing for Astraweb and PowerUsenet, both seem to have great pricing. Newshosting was suggested to me by a couple co-workers, so it was an easy sell.

Location: West-Coast/Vancouver
Provider: Shaw Cable
Connection: 10MBit + Speedboost

[DeXeS]

Can be that your internet provider turned the speed for newsgroups down. Try using ssl if that's not throttled to..
* Try a internet speed test. If the speed is ok:
* Try a different newsgroups download program. If the speed there is low:
* Try SSL connection to the newsgroup provider.

if the speed in another newsgroup download program with the same server properties as sabnzbd+, reinstall sabnzbd+

[markus101]

Currently I don't have SSL connections, but also when doing a Trace Route I see a huge spike in latency at the final hop, I'm not seeing this latency in the Trace Route when running it from a Telus DSL connection, the paths are slightly different, but shouldn't vary by 100+ ms to the same destination.

Newshosting suggested many of the same steps as mentioned by DeXeS (DeXeS was faster though:P).  Thanks for the info, I appreciate the quick response.

Hopefully they will bring good news back from their Admin team as they said they were passing it on to them.

[interfacelift]

I have Newshosting, and no problems saturating my 6.25mbit connection. If you figure out the cause or a solution, make sure to post back on here. I'm interested in case I ever have any issues. Best of luck to you :-)

[markus101]

If you don't mind me asking, where are you located? Also are you connecting to the unlimited server? or the NXHL server?

I've been testing using Just-ping.com and the DOS ping utility, when both of those show responses in the 100ms area, i get full connection, when that increases I see slowdowns, 150ms = about 800KB/s 200 = 600KB/s/ and 250ms gives me about 400KB/s.

I see simular response times coming form the just-ping.com West Coast locations, but see much improved response times for locations in the East (NY/Chicago), although Florida and Austin seen to suffer the same as me.



I've really started looking at switching to another provider, likely powerusenet, for $20 you get 12 connections, SSL included and 125 days retention, versus the 80 and no SSL I get with Newshosting ATM. Plus its on special, 2 months for $10 each, 5-day/10GB trial has me inclined to test them out at least, worst case scenario I stick with Newshosting and the speed gets fixed, have a few days before December renews, might as well test out some trials.

[interfacelift]

I'm located in the SF Bay Area. Connecting to the unlimited server ($15/month).

Code: Select all

--- unlimited.newshosting.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 94.106/96.451/108.285/3.973 ms

Seems fairly reasonable to me. I'll have to double check it at various points in the day, but usually I can fairly reliably saturate my entire connection at 800KB/sec with some 40KB fluctuations as I get some network hiccups or QoS redistributes bandwidth away from my SABnzbd machine for some other use.

Oh, and NH's 80 day retention doesn't seem to affect me much. I can reliably get stuff to ~105 days with few problems (more reliable on popular newsgroups versus less used ones).

[markus101]

I was seeing the same thing, about 100KB/s fluctuations, but always right up there saturating my bandwidth. I've attached a picture of the consumption yesterday, I started about 30GB at about 9am and it was going full bore, then it crashed through-out the day until 5pm, ran for a bit (then I shutdown my computer). back on around 8pm and it ran until about 11pm, when I ran out of disk space, whoops.

The 30GB queue had an ETA of 8 hours, but crept its way up to 15+ hours as my connection struggled to get bandwidth.

[JPA]

Seeing as you have poor download speeds you need to do a reverse traceroute. You can do this here: http://www.newshosting.com/en/newshosti ... -trace.php

If you traceroute the server yourself then it's just showing the route it would take if you were uploading

If it is a problem with the route, you can just try some of the alternative ports for the server you're connecting to. They are listed on http://www.newshosting.com/en/newshosti ... mation.php
That will send your data through an alternative route.

If that don't fix it then i'm not sure what is causing it, the only things I could think of are that your ISP is throttling or NewsHosting are throttling you (you never know, its not like support tell the truth all the time)

I've really started looking at switching to another provider, likely powerusenet, for $20 you get 12 connections, SSL included and 125 days retention, versus the 80 and no SSL I get with Newshosting ATM. Plus its on special, 2 months for $10 each, 5-day/10GB trial has me inclined to test them out at least, worst case scenario I stick with Newshosting and the speed gets fixed, have a few days before December renews, might as well test out some trials.

With astraweb for $11/month (permanent price) you get 20 connections, SSL included and 160 days rentention. http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/k ... .html 

[markus101]

That's great pricing regardless. I might check them out just to see, hows the speed? I read somewhere that the service wasn't great, but I haven't heard back from NG in a few days either, although my speeds for most of today have been rock solid.

I tried the reverse traceroute today, was pretty solid at just under 100ms, which does correspond with the speed increase. My ISP/NG could be throttling, though I'd rather them throttle than disable to connection altogether - which is why switching to SSL would be a nice change.

[JPA]

That's great pricing regardless. I might check them out just to see, hows the speed? I read somewhere that the service wasn't great, but I haven't heard back from NG in a few days either, although my speeds for most of today have been rock solid.

I tried the reverse traceroute today, was pretty solid at just under 100ms, which does correspond with the speed increase. My ISP/NG could be throttling, though I'd rather them throttle than disable to connection altogether - which is why switching to SSL would be a nice change.

Speeds are pretty good with astraweb, have a friend who gets 60Mbit (max his connection can do). I use them myself too and have never had a problem

[markus101]

Newshosting is back to its normal speeds, not sure what the hiccup was, but it's back and just as fast as ever. Never did get final word from them on what the issue was, so at this point I'm not sure who to point the finger at, in any event I'll be staying with newshosting for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for the tip on Astraweb, I told a guy at work about it, he might give it a shot.