550GB block account with no expiry date. Up to 50 connections, SSL, US and EU servers. Deal is valid until 12 AM US EST on Tuesday 29/5. This appears to be a better deal than Astraweb 1,000 GB for $50: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/66934 . Newsgroupdirect are a Highwinds reseller.
First rule of Ozbargain?
First rule of usenet nowadays seems to be: 'Tell everybody how 1337 you think you are for using it!' :p
First rule of Usenet…
If this is your first download, you have to seed. .. oh wait.
In case anyone thinks these better
http://www.thundernews.com/thundernews_blackfriday_deal.php
Still going…
No contracts, Up to 50 connections, SSL, US and EU servers.
75Gb/month $5/month.
In fact here is cheaper!
http://www.thundernews.com/thundernews_blackfriday_blowout20…
Unlimited $7.50/month.
And a further saving tip…
If you have an unlimited account
and say your friend uses the EU servers
and you use the US servers, account
sharing seems to work very well.
Sounds like a good way to get your account suspended.
I wouldn't risk it. They'll eventually know about it if you're doing it at the same time.
How is it against the terms in ThunderNews though? You may have unlimited download but it's not like you get unlimited connections anyway.
@RickOnOzBargain: I seriously doubt you'll be able to sign up for the black friday deals anymore. Just wait for the next one if you want unlimited at USD$5.00
I cancelled 5 yr astraweb subscription and got on the unlimited black friday Thundernews plans, after a few weeks the speed WAS throttled to 300KB/sec.
Logged a support case, they were rude to me. They said it was something to do with my connection. After going back and forward I plugged in my mates Thundernews user/pass and got full speed to the same server!
back to my login details from the special and it was severely limited, in the end their help desk told me to get lost and I requested an immediate cancellation of my subscription.
They aren't a provider, they re-sell other peoples services, stay very very far away when all the support is in India.
Darn, no Paypal?
What is a "block" account?
It's an alternative to a monthly subscription. Instead of getting a certain amount of data that expires every month and paying a monthly fee, you pay a single fee and get a 'block' of data that doesn't expire until it's completely used up.
It says 500GB, not 550
It also includes a 10% header allowance, if you read the finer print it confirms the block size is actually 550 GB.
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Just a little concerning, NGD direct= '100.00USD'/Terabyte-normal. This converts to $103aud/TB, whereas Astraweb 1TB=50.00% cheaper ($50US). But then, probably that is what enables NGD to supply this discount. NGD direct on this deal come out $36.3636USD/TB , so a saving 27.27%, which at least competes with Astraweb.
Typically I have consumed maybe 0.17TB/mo(average), so the block a/c makes sense.
Done! Thanks for the heads up!
Astraweb doesn't count headers toward quota, but I can't imagine many users pulling too many headers these days anyway (with the plethora of index sites around) so this deal probably tops Astrawebs $50 for 1000GB but Its really not here nor there since prepaid users are not heavy users anyway.
retention? and lack of paypal is a major killer.
1375 days and yeah, no paypal means no way.
I paid using my CC. I then asked the support team to remove my credit card billing information (they will tell you that it makes it hard for you to make payments later on, but if you aren't a loyal customer this doesn't matter, lol)
Excerp:
Hi,
We use a third party, authorize.net (a major payment processor), to store your information. We can't see it ourselves. We won't bill you for a block account without you taking action first.
I can gladly remove your information if you wish, but it will just complicate things later when you want to make another payment.
Jim
well I'd rather not give them my CC information in the first place.
Download more than 200GB a month?
Then you are better off on Astraweb's $8/month unlimited plan. Only negative is you have to pay upfront for a year ($96/yr) although I'm now halfway through my second year on this plan :)
These block plans are pretty good value if you are only a casual usenet user.
This is a good deal. NGD regularly have their 1.1TB (.1 for headers) plan for $40 so this is a good alternative for those that don't need to much data.
However they are a Highwinds reseller if that matter. If so then go to Astra's 1.1TB (.1 for headers) $50 deal whom have their own server farms.
For myself I've been happy with my Thundernews $5 per month Unlimited Black Friday Account (another Highwinds reseller) used with a Blocknews backup for fills.
However for those that use Blocks this is again a good deal.
I'm still running the Thundernews $5 a month unlimited as well. I have had no problems at all. It has been a great investment
+1
Downloading >2.20 TB/annum, you'd be using it fairly routinely too. (:@DCx3)
So wait, usenet is basically content hosted on server clusters for certain periods of time and the fees are basically to pay for the bandwith and maintainence of the content ?
What type of download speeds would you guys expect to get ? How will I know what servers host what content ?
I tried to get into usenet a few years ago but I never really figured out the answers to those questions.
What type of download speeds would you guys expect to get ?
My ADSL2+ connection isn't fast (11mbps) so all Usenet hosts will generally saturate my connection. The fastest I can download is 1.1 MBPS. Not exactly record breaking, but it's fast enough since I'm only a casual user.
Bigpond cable users on WP are reporting speeds of between 3~5 mbps on Bigpond Cable via Astraweb.
How will I know what servers host what content ?
You generally won't know what's going on behind the servers. If you try to download something and it seems to stall, that means the server is probably missing the files and you will need to use another server for the rest of the content. Astraweb generally has good file completion rates — sign up for a small block account from Astra and then use it as a backup in case something does not complete.
As a cable experience, generally the better part of 100 Mbit is the speed from Astraweb. Although on previous connection, the net was dreadful having 2.5 Mbit ADSL 2+.
Where HFC network does exist, it will mean downloading Usenet won't get in the way of live content and significant interactive things. (although, technically, even '0,5 Mbit-committed' would yield enough speed to supply my appetite for casual-block feed; i.e. 160 GB, keeping to within ~ 1/3rd of my cable/metered limit.)
I'm on astraweb and max out my ADSL2+ connection easily.. I get a constant speed of around 2MB/s unless I limit it. Also you'll want to use an indexing site if you want to find binary files, from there you just hope that your provider (astraweb or whoever) has those files on their server for you to collect.
got one thanks OP..lets see how we go
I download more than 550gb a week, so block plans are useless. Astraweb Kleverig has suited me fine for 5 years.
Other than the shocking amount of incompletes since moving to astraweb…
Thanks for informing me of this special. I usually don't need unlimited; just a backup account for my main.EasyNews account.
meatgasm - generally I get good speeds with just 8 threads. I use a combination of Alt.binz (for traditional NNTP) and LeechGuy to access Easynew's web interface (far less header info to download than with traditional NNTP). Most servers carry all the important groups, and you could probably request a newsgroup if they don't carry it. These days there isn't as much niche content on Usenet as there was 5 years ago (eg RPG pdfs, classical music) but Usenet is a good source for large "scene" releases.
I formerly used Binsearch to locate NZBs (or I can use Easynews's web interface), but lately they are missing a lot of listings. I don't know if they are filtering results due to MAFIAA pressure or whether their software cannot deal with the huge amount of headers required to keep up to date. NZBClub seems to be a good alternative.
Expired
First rule of Usenet…