Astraweb Error Compilation

[Stehle]

I've been alternating with Frugal (Under 300 days retention.) and Astra (Over 300 days retention.)

(Still a pain, but allows me to pluck audio books posted 1000+ days (Never it seems to be posted again.) and the more current stuff with nary an error.

Thanks again Beck38 & shaina for providing such detailed information.

(Ohh... hitting about $15 per month achieving the above.)

Still watching...

[Beck38]

Astra/US and Giganews/US haven't improved one bit in the last month+; everything older than a couple of weeks to around 2+ years old are hosed (anywhere from 15-30% parts corrupted. If one goes back 3+ years it's in fairly good shape.

So, from the earliest complaints (going on 2+ months now), no improvements whatsoever.

[alecoddlyiv]

Anyone else experiencing severe completion issues with Astra starting a couple days ago? Not a huge issue as I have a fairly reliable EU backup but is significantly slower.

It may be time for me to look into another provider...

yeah ive been having probs with a lot of new season tv stuffs, whats your EU backup?

[Beck38]

If you're chasing unencrypted/unobfuscated tv fare, which generally has a big 'DMCA/Delete me' sign stuck on it, you're going to be out of luck unless you're running a 'quick grab' system triggered by some semi-hidden trick, or hope that some eu server (or maybe some us one for that matter) drags it's feet for a couple of days, but has found that no banks will process their subscriber fees.

This thread has nothing to do with that, but with the overall performance (or lack thereof) of both Astraweb/US and Astraweb/EU.

[Hypatia]

Beck38

For those who 'look down' at the Highwinds providers

but you know it's not that... it's just we can't stand Highwinds anti-usenet business practice..trying to monopolize the whole thing and then do who knows what..

[Beck38]

All I can say is that, for right now (and it looks like the foreseeable future) that the highwinds plants are being run far better than the other two 'big boys' on the block, Giganews and Astraweb.

Astra is now having major problems with their outside payment processor as well, in addition to the data retention foul-ups, to the point I may end up dropping them.

I don't believe that highwinds will buy up Giga or Astra, although maybe Astra could be targeted (it being the smaller of the two).