Orcon USENET server is terribly unreliable

Copy of an email I just sent to <>:

The subject says it all. It's consistently the WORST USENET service I've
EVER had from ANY ISP in New Zealand, EVER. It flakes out all the time,
I can't connect, it hangs with no info being sent halfway through an
operation (like sending an article). I might as well go back to paying
NewsGuy (a US based USENET feed) who were great _and_ carried all the
groups I want (which you do, it's just the service is crap) for USD$9.95
per month. But then WTF am I paying you guys for? Email? I can do that
myself if need be!

Please - I want a decent freaking USENET feed. Why is it taking so long
to sort this out?

Also, the service you outsource to obviously doesn't give a sh*t about
their feed and the quality of groups carried - just look at all the
POINTLESS misspelled, empty groups! WTF is the point of carrying other
people's errors in creating groups???

What kind of a micky mouse operation is this? C'mon Orcon - get your act
together. You _used_ to be a decent ISP.

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet (a very pissed off customer).

 

Yeah cause that kind of message will help your cause.
Also remember that only a small amount of users use usenet so its not
exactly going to be top of their priorities. Anyway the choice of isp's
is large so you aren't forced to stay with orcon if newsfeeds are
important to you.

 

LOL yeah I got an error when connecting to it this afternoon saying the
servers trial period had expired on Oct 28 2004

 

heh that might have something to do with it

 

news.individual.net

I use it.

It's good.

It's free.

It takes about 10 days to get your access details once you register.

--
Distributed Computing Projects:
SETI at Home
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/seti2/stats.php?userID=1248
ClimatePrediction.net
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/cpdn/stats.php?userID=334

 

Yeah, me too. Wondered what was going on, but the message hasn't
appeared again, and newsgroups were only briefly unavailable.

Not very a professional look, though, is it?

I reckon we had better usenet service with Welcom and the other BBSs,
I'm sure there must a couple of other people here who remember them.

cheers

 

I agree with everything you have said, although I would have tried to be
more diplomatic with my wording.

Orcon does not promote or explain what usenet is on their site, so it is
not surprising new customers do not use it.

Their anti-spam system is under documented also. It seems that Seeby has
dropped the ball...

--

.... Brendan

Outdolence: The act of giving or distributing indolence

Note: All my comments are copyright 30/10/2004 11:13:43 p.m. and are opinion only where not otherwise stated and always "to the best of my recollection". www.computerman.orcon.net.nz.

************************************************************************
* THE BELOW ADVERT IS NOT MY WORK AND IS APPENDED AGAINST MY WISHES. *
* NEWSFEEDS.COM'S CLAIM OF 100,000 GROUPS IS BOGUS AS MANY OF THEM *
* ARE ILLEGITIMATE AND DELETED BY MOST OTHERS. NEWSFEEDS.COM CANNOT *
*BE TRUSTED. THEY USE YOUR DISCUSSION AS A VEHICLE FOR SPAMMING USENET.*
************************************************************************

 

on Sat, 30 Oct 2004 17:31:20 +1300, Jamie Kahn Genet

In the alt hierarchy, anyone can create a group. All ISPs carry these
groups, regardless.

 

I doubt that this is the case. I have seen the usenet of many ISPs in the
course of my work and they all carry varying numbers of groups. I vaguely
recall there being a post (or maybe it was an email) from someone at I think
it was ihug a number of years ago stating that they were pruning invalid
groups from their usenet server... I presume that many other ISPs do the
same.

Andrew

 

How does Ihug decide what is an "invalid" group?

Paradise carries something like 65,000 groups. Within those are a number
that have different spellings of the same words.

I'm sure you too can subscribe to
alt.2eggs.sausage.beans.tomatoes.2toast.largetea.cheerslove if you wish,
as long as the group has been validly created by sending the appropriate
control message who is to say if it is invalid or not?

This is different from when the ISPs were asked by Internal Affairs to
remove certain groups in alt.binaries.sex hierarchy.

 

I just got the trial error...

 

To begin with please note who I am posting this through- that's right:
GOOGLE! Cause I can't even freakin' download any articles from Orcon's
freakin' crap server!!!

On the upside I did get the reply below from Orcon the other day
(which I would have loved to have posted earlier - but I can't access
my above post to reply to it!!!) so all hope is not lost - yet:

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 19:25:53 +1300
From: "Orcon Technical" <>
Subject: [Orcon Technical #DOR-87464-144]: Orcon USENET server is
terribly unreliable
To:

We are already looking at an alternative provider at the moment.
Newsfeeds.com are not giving a very good service at all.

Thanks
Craig

I sincerely hope Orcon gets off their arses and gets a decent service
asap, cause as I told their phone tech support guy (who didn't f**king
know what I meant by "USENET", but finally the penny dropped when I
said "newsgroups") after waiting _52_ minutes (I was _really_ steamed
) "Either get a decent USENET service or you lose me as a
customer. I'll give you five days".

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet

 

I don't give a sh*t. Asking nicely isn't working anymore. I NEED a
decent bloody text and binary newsgroup feed! It is INCONCEIVABLE that
they couldn't have set up a decent server themselves or found a GOOD
service provider to do the job for them by now! I mean, how
incompetent can you GET??? It's been weeks of crap service and now NO
damn service (or nothing workable for me, at least). It's not f**king
rocket science. WTF is so special about Orcon that they can't get this
right?

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet

 

I have to agree 100% with you. It has gone to the dogs. I mean all I want
to actually work is nz.comp.

The reality is though that they are only trying to please all 10 customers
who actually use newsgroups (I mean if the helldesk guy doesn't know what
usenet is then there is no hope for joe average).

Of course if the ISPs could sort out some peering arrangements..

I'll be lucky if anyone sees this post at all.

 

Not what I mean.

Examples of the stupid mistake groups carried by Orcon's provider are:

comp.sys.mac.commcomp.sys.mac.system
comp.sys.mac.wantedmisc.forsale.computers.mac

nz.org.isconz
nz.org.isocnz } [spot the difference.]

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.hmtl

HTF do you justify this sh*t?

F**king incompetent of them and Orcon for choosing them.

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet

 

I have to wonder if they have any way of knowing how many customers use the
newsgroups. I used to use my ISP to read this group and one other, then I
changed to Orcon and I started using my Easynews account for reading this
group.

Luckily for me I have an account with Easynews anyway, otherwise I would
not be happy. It is also lucky that I use a mail server for all outgoing
mail and my pop accounts are hosted by the provider that hosts my website.
I only need my ISP to provide the connection to the internet and Orcon is
doing a good enough job of that.

Unfortunately no other ISP seems to be offering an uncapped service for a
256k or faster plan. 10GB is just not enough and the excess charges (on
any plan that lets you exceed 10GB if you pay for it) are an out and out
con. When I was using jetstart with IHUG they let me have 10GB for $35 but
20GB would have cost $1035, WTF! If it really cost anywhere near 10c per
MB then they could not offer 10GB for $35 without going broke in the first
month. Telecom is worse on their full speed ADSL charging 20c per MB
(that's $200 per GB), a case of the monopoly doing extreme price gouging?

 

There are NO decent newsfeeds here in NZ, FACT.

If you need a decent one you have to pay for it and it seems they are all in
the US, so get your credit card ready.

Easynews is one of the better one and you can use Leechguy to dnload the
binaries directly, fully decoded and with out using there crappy binary
dnloader..

Leechguy supports 3 ISP's that have direct Binary dnloads, from memory.



http://member.newsguy.com/~leechguy/

 

If you are only after nz.comp that go to one of the many free ones, not all
allow posting though.

 

The Xtra one (*shudder*) has never let me down, although I am not a
hard-core junkie.

 

10c is ridiculous, but don't they need to have some sort of idea of how
much bandwith is used so they can purchase in advance (not sticking up for
ISPs, i don't know how this all works)