Astraweb retention being increased to 270 days

http://helpdesk.astraweb.com/index.p...news&newsid=12

Astraweb Announces Retention Upgrade to 270 Days

Astraweb is pleased to announce that we have just completed an infrastructure upgrade to increase our retention and improve our network.

Our retention is currently growing towards 270 days from 160 days. The latest retention statistics as our retention grows is available at:

http://www.news.astraweb.com/tools/stats.html

Our retention growth is for ALL groups. Our retention growth also includes headers, unlike many other services that do not include headers as part of their retention growth.

Along with our retention upgrade, Astraweb is also committed to provide the best network connectivity. As such, we have signed a new agreement with Level 3. The majority of our traffic will now be sent via Level 3, one of the best Tier 1 providers in the world!

Astraweb is committed to providing the best value service!

Wow, great news, thanks!:naughty:
Happy New Year to everyone btw!

Amazing:)!!!

Happy New Year

wow that's crazy :yahoo:

WOW

Now I don't think there is ANY reason to stick with Giganews anymore.

That looks impressive now we wait for the Giganews response. Will we finally get 365 days of retention.

$11/ month for 270 day retention, crazy, just crazy good news.

Holy fucking shit, i'm speechless. :D

Retention is growing at a rate someday when we want to see classic films and play classic games we may download the original usenet post. Its rather astonishing when you consider the growth of usenet in recent years as far as the overall feed size that they are able to continue to scale their servers to hold so much information.

I liked it better when it was ... huh? what's this usenet? What goes up, must come down... Tragic.

-bzzzz-

Hummm. I am definitely looking forward to this. :)

Fantastic!!

Great news.

Considering how cheap storage has become, this shouldn't be much of a shock.

Perhaps Giganews will extend their retention or drop prices?

Giganews to 300+ is my bet.

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Originally Posted by basilhaydens

Giganews to 300+ is my bet.

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Agreed.

They need to do something to keep justifying the extra 15-20 dollars more per month that they charge for unlimited accounts.

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Originally Posted by Skizo

Considering how cheap storage has become, this shouldn't be much of a shock.

Perhaps Giganews will extend their retention or drop prices?

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With others also extending their storage, I see a price war on the near horizon.

The cost of storage, particularly with SATA drives, continues it's downward spiral. Prices now are breaching < $100/terabyte, I just bought two 1.5T at less than that level ($140).

So the next 'level' will be 365 days retention, it's almost within an easy shot right now. But every once in a while I do a 'sight check' on GN retention, and they're still 'ramping up' on the popular binary groups, still quite a bit short on retention there (last check a couple weeks ago showed around 170+ days).

All in all it's all good for us consumers. Some healthy competition is a good thing.
I've been an Astraweb user for a year now and I'm very satisfied with their services.

All i can say is Astraweb FTW :D.

Wonder if a price increase will follow? I'm glad i got in at 11$/ Month

I think I might jump in today.. Need to go get a 'gift' visa for internet transactions..

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Originally Posted by 222MHz

I think I might jump in today.. Need to go get a 'gift' visa for internet transactions..

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Astraweb was my 'second' back in the day that I chased after fills (i.e., before I 'bit the bullet' and paid the bucks for GN). Still have quite a bit of 'leftovers' from my last bulk purchase (several years ago).

But a few months ago, had some leftover monies on a gift card I tried to use to get a bit more from Astraweb, and their site would simply not accept it; not that it was something out of the ordinary, it was a BofA Gift Card, the biggest in the industry (at that time). But their site still wouldn't accept it.

Virtually all the 'Gift Card' purveyors (BofA has since gotten out of the business, btw), require tons of private information, virtually as bad as getting a credit card. There are a handful left that don't, but you have to really dig around without giving up your 'first born'.

They supposedly are 'accepting' paypal, so if you already have that set up (eBay, etc.), then maybe it's a way to go.

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Originally Posted by llama85

Wonder if a price increase will follow? I'm glad i got in at 11$/ Month

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Yup, so am I.

Everybody better get on it before they drop the deal. The price won't increase for current $11/month subscribers.

Looks like I'm too late. It's $15/month now.

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Originally Posted by mbucari1

Looks like I'm too late. It's $15/month now.

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Not if you click the link http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html

Well fuck.. I went a got a $25 card.. I was going for astraweb, but they don't seem to like the 'gift' cards AMEX from BoA.. But guess who didn't care.. Yup, Giganews.. So until I decide to get a bank account again and welcome myself out of SSL and back to the grid, I'll be happy to pay a couple bucks more for peace of mind.




Regardless I'm glad to be done with fucking Easynews..

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Originally Posted by 222MHz

Well fuck.. I went a got a $25 card.. I was going for astraweb, but they don't seem to like the 'gift' cards AMEX from BoA.. But guess who didn't care.. Yup, Giganews.. So until I decide to get a bank account again and welcome myself out of SSL and back to the grid, I'll be happy to pay a couple bucks more for peace of mind.




Regardless I'm glad to be done with fucking Easynews..

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Technically, it's not astraweb that didn't like the gift card.. it's their payment processor. I'm guessing you just clicked the Buy Now button? that takes you to 2checkout.
They also use other payment processors though, if you used the special kleverig offer, you'll see at the bottom of the page it says: Dutch Users pay with iDeal here. You could try that, they also accept AMEX, ignore the part about dutch users, just change the country on the payment page :P

If you're doing one of the normal plans, the iDeal link will be on the left side of the page :)

There's an idea for next month..

amazing news, yeah atm. there is no reason to stay with giganews, paying the extra 15 a month is getting kinda costly for me, already canceled giganews so at the next invoice, astraweb here i come! +D

I emailed Giganews questioning the competitors announcements.. The reply was

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"Please keep an eye on our website, should be an update there shortly..."

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Less than 2 hours ago.. Time shall tell.

Holy shit is all I can say. I wonder how long it will take for them to start increasing.

Nice to see Astraweb starting to step it up.

The real issue comes down to price over retention, we will hit a wall, if we haven't already where retention becomes a non-issue with quickly available reposts. While advertised retention is one thing, actual retention of the physical data on all possible drives (in the world) is an entire different retention. 10 years ago there were 1/2 the personal computers on the planet. 10 years ago, it would have made a shit load of sense of who could hold on to what the longest. TODAY, however it only matters who can give me close to the socially accepted window of 'it's still being passed around' before a repost is requesonested.. Case in point, member "Broken" was in search of Cars 2006 this week.. We'll at first is didn't look available, but mentioned here and another member got working on an upload intending to publish the nzb, because he still had it on HIS disk. Giving usenet another year to try to forget about it. SO, as older files can not grow in size and todays bandwidth and disk sizes do, retention should be the least of our concerns.

Same with connection, although as bandwidth goes up our connection might need to aswell.. But 20 connection is WAY more than enough for 95% or residential customers.

this is good news as i just signed up !

So are astraweb's speeds consistently high, or do they fluctuate a lot? Giganews will max out my 6.5mbps connection 24/7.

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Originally Posted by mbucari1

So are astraweb's speeds consistently high, or do they fluctuate a lot? Giganews will max out my 6.5mbps connection 24/7.

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All depends on the route it takes from the server to you, that is the main thing that affects you're speed. Use the reverse traceroute utility on the site to check it. http://www.news.astraweb.com/tools/tracepub.cgi

Though I think you will easily be able to reach 6.5Mb/s without fluctuation (or minor fluctuation). I've seen 62Mb/s with minor fluctuation (but that's normal for speed that high) :)

i have 30mb download speed and it constantly maxes out on astraweb

I've been happy with Astraweb so far. Their block size downloads are perfect for me. And now their increased retention is an awesome plus.

I'm not sure if this was always the case, but if you go directly to their site it is $15/month for DSL unlimited, or $39/3 months. But if you click on the advertisements the special is for $11/month.

Link to $11 special: http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html

I signed up today for Astraweb. I would have done so without the increase over Giganews. The increase is a bonus.
Nothing against Giganews, just too pricey for their unlimited plans.

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Originally Posted by 222MHz

I emailed Giganews questioning the competitors announcements.. The reply was

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"Please keep an eye on our website, should be an update there shortly..."

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Less than 2 hours ago.. Time shall tell.

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It really doesn't even matter how high their retention goes. 270 is more then enough for anyone to get what they need. The price is a big problem, I don't know how they can justify charging more then almost all other competitors.

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Originally Posted by asmithz

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Originally Posted by 222MHz

I emailed Giganews questioning the competitors announcements.. The reply was Less than 2 hours ago.. Time shall tell.

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It really doesn't even matter how high their retention goes. 270 is more then enough for anyone to get what they need. The price is a big problem, I don't know how they can justify charging more then almost all other competitors.

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I want more if I can get it.

And I don't really see a problem in paying $20-$30. This is just pocket money anyway.

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Originally Posted by MultiForce

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Originally Posted by asmithz

It really doesn't even matter how high their retention goes. 270 is more then enough for anyone to get what they need. The price is a big problem, I don't know how they can justify charging more then almost all other competitors.

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I want more if I can get it.

And I don't really see a problem in paying $20-$30. This is just pocket money anyway.

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Mehh, I think at a certain point retention becomes all the same.....
I personally dont care when it goes over 250 because all the stuff posted then is out of date for me anyway. ( Apps )
Although I can see it for other stuff too ( movies, games, music ).