Whence?

[Upscale]

Just to make sure you understand. Usenet is not closing. AT&T is not going to provide access to it any more.

[keithw86]

Not in the business, but I switched my Usenet access to individual.net something line five years ago when my (then) ISP was having problems. For 10EUR (about $13) a year its cheap enough and the customer service is great. The only downside is that they don't carry any binary groups.

[Drew Lawson]

And AT&T did not (that I know of) send any *email* about it. They made a Usenet posting to their own servers.

[Drew Lawson]

ISPs have been dropping Usenet support for at least a decade.

One way is outsourcing it. In that case, their customers still have the service, so largely no one cares (aside from the ISP's IT department). (My "AT&T" servers identified themselves as being Prodigy.)

Others just drop it. Some outsource and then drop it later.

Binaries ruined Usenet from the provider's end. Even with cheap connections, hardware/power/facilities for hosting that volume is a bear. That's especially true when most of the customer base doesn't know or care about anything other than websites.

I'm surprised that any ISPs still have news servers. I would guess that none in the US will have them by the end of the current economic troubles.

BTW, I'm using "ISP" as I am accustomed to -- a service provider with "last mile" service (DSL, cablemodem, dialup, satellite). There are lots of other Service Providers on the Internet, but I don't call them ISPs.

[Jim in Milwaukee]

I did!

Important Updates to Your AT&T Internet Service

Dear AT&T Internet Service Member:

Our records indicate that you have accessed our Usenet newsgroup feature in the past 90 days. We are writing to inform you that this feature will be available through July 15. On or around July 15, 2009 we will no longer provide access to the Usenet service. If you wish to continue accessing Usenet newsgroups, please be aware that many Usenet services are available for a subscription fee.

Sincerely,

Your AT&T Internet Service Customer Care Team

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE VIA E-MAIL This address is automated, unattended, and cannot help with questi> >>> yet. I would think all AT&T users would be notified.

[Jack Stein]

$13 a year is not expensive except you are paying for something that is free. If you want binaries, you can pay, but if you just want the text part of usenet, eternal-september.org is perfect, totally free, and works exactly the same as giganews without the binaries. Motzarella now is Eternal-september.org. See tag below.

[Jack Stein]

Or, they could sign up Motzerella, now Eternal-september.org and continue to participate in usenet, free, other than binaries...

[Jack Stein]

Nobody is moving, just a name change.

Seems Motzarella was having a name conflict with someone, so, Motzarella changed their name to Eternal-September, an OLD reference to what happened when AOL hooked up to Usenet, thus insuring Usenet would be "plagued" with a never ending influx of newbees, instead of just in September, when a new crop of freshmen students invalided usenet with bad netiquitte.

At any rate, Eternal-September.org provides FREE and solid access to anyone that wishes to participate in usenet, but no binaries.

[FrozenNorth]

True, technically, but that post was made to multiple public newsgroups and hence propagated to other news servers. Posting to private groups only available to their customers, or an email to their customers would have been a better form of communication.

[Scott Lurndal]

:eternal-september: is a fine joke. Would have been a good name for AOL in the day....

scott

[Steve Turner]

I got the same email, about a week after they made the Usenet posting to their own servers.