MWEB Usenet decommisioning

N

nugpot

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I have just received the following email from MWEB:
Dear MWEBBER,

Over the last few years, MWEB has partnered with Giganews to deliver the latest content on our Usenet service hosted on news.mweb.co.za. However, due to the extremely low uptake on the service, we have made the decision to terminate this service as of 23 October 2014.

Don't despair, if you wish to continue using this service, Giganews is offering all MWEB subscribers an exclusive lifetime discount on their Premium Usenet service.
Join Giganews today and receive
1. 14 Day FREE Trial
Try Giganews risk free for 14 days and experience the World's Best Usenet.
2. Up to 60% off 2 months of service + 10% off every month after FOR LIFE. Get 60% off 2 months of a Diamond plan, or 1 month of any other Giganews plan and get 10% off every month after for life.
Giganews Diamond Account Includes:
• Over 2200 Days Retention!
• Up to 50 Connections
• Unlimited Speed
• VyprVPN Personal VPN Service
• Dump Truck Secure Online Storage
• Mimo Usenet Browser
Visit http://www.giganews.com/mweb/?a=mweb and try Giganews free today.

We thank you for your continued support.

Kind regards
The MWEB Team
Click to expand...

The nice thing about using the MWEB usenet server was that it was usually not throttled too badly and it was local, so international bandwidth problems did not affect the speed too much.

They now have the audacity to try and put a positive spin on the fact that I will have to pay Giganews $30 per month to keep my Usenet access. That basically means that you are removing R300 worth of value from my MWEB account per month. Cool, I'd like to pay R300 per month less to MWEB then.

Just so that we are completely clear about it. Giganews is a gigantic rip-off, even in the muddy waters of Usenet SP's. Then I would rather pay $50 per 1000GB from Astraweb. At least then I only pay for what I use.

It has probably now removed the last reason for me to stay at MWEB, so I'll probably move on to another ISP after 20 years with the same ISP (UUnet/Iafrica/MWEB).
 
nugpot said:
I have just received the following email from MWEB:


The nice thing about using the MWEB usenet server was that it was usually not throttled too badly and it was local, so international bandwidth problems did not affect the speed too much.

They now have the audacity to try and put a positive spin on the fact that I will have to pay Giganews $30 per month to keep my Usenet access. That basically means that you are removing R300 worth of value from my MWEB account per month. Cool, I'd like to pay R300 per month less to MWEB then.

Just so that we are completely clear about it. Giganews is a gigantic rip-off, even in the muddy waters of Usenet SP's. Then I would rather pay $50 per 1000GB from Astraweb. At least then I only pay for what I use.

It has probably now removed the last reason for me to stay at MWEB, so I'll probably move on to another ISP after 20 years with the same ISP (UUnet/Iafrica/MWEB).
Click to expand...

Hi nugpot

Your feedback has been heard and noted.
We have decided to close this down due to extremely low uptake.

This was also a value added service to the MWEB products at no additional charge.
 
Last edited:
MWEB Guy said:
Hi nugpot

Hi Willem, your feedback has been heard and noted.
We have decided to close this down due to extremely low uptake.

This was also a value added service to the MWEB products at no additional charge.
Click to expand...
If Mweb were paying for it, then so were customers. Let's not cause further spin.
 
I'm in the same boat. due to the shutting down of the usenet service I'm highly considering jumping to a new isp.

When is the shut off date @Mwebguy?
 
'Dear MWEBBER' :D

Wonder if any other ISP's feel this way ? Can't see Telkom or IS pulling theirs, it's been going for years.

Just get a block account from the next generation news :) aka nextgennews.net
 
Sorry MWeb Guy.

Know we might be in the minority using the server but will also be moving my 10 MB uncapped line
to a provider that gives me a local usenet server.

Think this is more a directive from the DSTV cash cow because everybody was cancelling their DSTV
subscriptions.
 
It seems the solution for Mweb would be to reimburse the customers making use of the news offering with the cost of a giganews account, or settling the account on their behalf. I mean as the Mweb representative said, due to the extremely low uptake I doubt this would make much of a difference to Mweb.

However, R300 a month does make a difference to what I consider too much for an Internet offering
 
Mweb pricing sucks for low end users..many people I know only need about 1Gb a month- Mweb charges R29 almost double of what is easily available from other ISP's
 
Dan C said:
'Dear MWEBBER' :D

Wonder if any other ISP's feel this way ? Can't see Telkom or IS pulling theirs, it's been going for years.

Just get a block account from the next generation news :) aka nextgennews.net
Click to expand...
Thanks, I checked out their offering and will definitely consider it if my new ISP does not have a news server. MWEB might not have had a large uptake of their news server, but I assume that they are going to lose every single one of those users (or at least those who have two brain cells to rub together).

It is a shame to retire an email address of 21 years, but just think of all the spam I am dumping .....
 
MWEB Guy said:
Hi nugpot

Your feedback has been heard and noted.
We have decided to close this down due to extremely low uptake.

This was also a value added service to the MWEB products at no additional charge.
Click to expand...

I will be moving isp's within the next month. Been with mweb since day one.
 
MWEB is the only ISP that publicly acknowledges that it does not want it's customers to use the Internet.

Meanwhile, on my ISP (link below!), they make sure that you know that it's a value add service. Up until today, I was not even aware MWEB was partnering with Giganews!
 
StevenC said:
MWEB is the only ISP that publicly acknowledges that it does not want it's customers to use the Internet.

Meanwhile, on my ISP (link below!), they make sure that you know that it's a value add service. Up until today, I was not even aware MWEB was partnering with Giganews!
Click to expand...
Can't see a link, do share.
 
nugpot said:
I have just received the following email from MWEB:


The nice thing about using the MWEB usenet server was that it was usually not throttled too badly and it was local, so international bandwidth problems did not affect the speed too much.

They now have the audacity to try and put a positive spin on the fact that I will have to pay Giganews $30 per month to keep my Usenet access. That basically means that you are removing R300 worth of value from my MWEB account per month. Cool, I'd like to pay R300 per month less to MWEB then.

Just so that we are completely clear about it. Giganews is a gigantic rip-off, even in the muddy waters of Usenet SP's. Then I would rather pay $50 per 1000GB from Astraweb. At least then I only pay for what I use.

It has probably now removed the last reason for me to stay at MWEB, so I'll probably move on to another ISP after 20 years with the same ISP (UUnet/Iafrica/MWEB).
Click to expand...

To be honest though you weren't getting the same value from the free servers as the paid for Giganews servers.

Retention alone is a perfectly good reason why Mweb could offer it for free and Giganews charge you.

I think Mweb have also done well to include a discount option and I see now reason why they should host such a server themselves.

HOWEVER I have to say the only reason this didn't work for Mweb and uptake is so low is because Mweb have never publicised that it even existed.

You could never find settings for the damn thing on Mweb's website and then it also only worked some of the time, so it's no surprise really that it's a failure because nobody even attempted to make it work.

Personally I just have Usenetbucket. Nice and cheap and does the job.
 
StevenC said:
MWEB is the only ISP that publicly acknowledges that it does not want it's customers to use the Internet.

Meanwhile, on my ISP (link below!), they make sure that you know that it's a value add service. Up until today, I was not even aware MWEB was partnering with Giganews!
Click to expand...

Also the first time I've heard about a partnership with Giganews and it certainly wasn't on the same level which makes me wonder if there was any real partnership at all.

Retention of 30 days is hardly Giganews standard.

Like I said above, if Mweb actually publicised the service existing in the first place then maybe people would use it.
 
Crystal Web has a sick news server, you should probably check it out, speeds are pretty much maxed whenever I've used it
 
SauRoNZA said:
To be honest though you weren't getting the same value from the free servers as the paid for Giganews servers.
Click to expand...
I am fully aware of that, but 30 days retention was fine for most of my needs and I always had a block account at another international to use if retention was an issue. Amazingly enough, I could get the same total speed from 4 connections at MWEB that I get with 50 from the other NNTP server I sometimes use and MWEB almost never throttled downloads from their own server, while SSL traffic is sometimes severely affected on my account and I am afraid that will probably happen to Giganews traffic as well.

My point here is that to replace the facility I had as part of my package at MWEB, they expect me to pay R300 per month to their own selected replacement, without any reduction to my subscription. I don't care if the usenet server was not advertised, it was one of the reasons I had stayed with MWEB for decades, despite the fact that they were neither the best, nor the cheapest ISP.

I very rarely had issues with the MWEB server and speeds were excellent. It just smacks of a decision made without any regard for the wishes of customers and the Giganews offer is an insult. They could rather give me a Giganews 3TB block account for free and let me use it until it is finished. That would be an acceptable offer to replace their service.

If the uptake was really so small, MWEB could afford to buy some block accounts from their "partner" Giganews and sort out all the regular users. They should have the stats of which users actually used the service. That to me would justify the loyalty that I have shown as a customer of over 20 years, most of those on premium contracts.
 
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