Just signed up with blocknews. Getting crippled dialup speeds!

wtf! I've been using astrawebs 180GB for $25 block accounts for years. Decided to try the slightly better blocknews deal (200GB for $21).

WTF! My download speeds start fine then gets throttled to 7kbs or stops completely. I've tried us and europe servers and all ports and they all do the same BS. Never had these kind of crippled speeds with astraweb.

does blocknews just suck (and I wasted $21) or is something else the problem?

You don't say where (location) you are, what your ISP (local connection) is, or the tracert (internetwork) path between you and Blocknews (or which Blocknews), or the Astraweb (or indeed which Astra) that's been working so well.

In short, just about zero information.

I'd give their support a try. In the past I've used both blocknews and usenetnow (usenetnow is the "unlimited" sister site) and found the support to be excellent. I've seen them reply in as fast as 10, 15 minutes. Again, give the support a shot. Let us know if you have any further issues, or if the issue is fixed, what the problem was.

Never had any speed problem with them in the 3 months I've been a customer.

your on dialup?????? lol thats ur problem

an update. last night I magically began getting max connections speeds (like a switch was flipped by blocknews) Now I tried to download something else this morning and its doing exactly the same thing it did yesterday (jammed download speeds. cant get anything)

"blocknews. You can download at max speeds for 6hrs of the day!"

screw this. I learned my lesson and going back to astraweb. I understand blocknews works fine for some people but they just raped me.

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Originally Posted by tmas333

 I understand blocknews works fine for some people but they just raped me.

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Did they at least buy you dinner first?

So anyone know why blocknews is sucking for me?

Heres all you need to know.

-its not my internet connection or speeds (direct downloads stay locked at max speeds and astraweb stayed at max)

-with the blocknews account it fires right and connects to all connections just fine (yes I've played with every port,server,connection settings they all do the same) The download starts at fast speeds then gets throttled and eventually goes down to 0kbs! then a few seconds it goes back up...and then back down. its like I have to many connections or something but like I said I tried all connections (even using just 1) and it does the same thing.

"Quality Usenet Block Accounts" my ass! They gave me some throttled suck account.

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Originally Posted by tmas333

"Quality Usenet Block Accounts" my ass! They gave me some throttled suck account.

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Blocknews has good rep. I'm pretty certain that Blocknews doesn't have any "throttled suck account". Have you tried contacting customer service? Their customer service is very good and quick to respond to customers.

Just sent those bastards this ticket...

New account not working properly. Crippled DL speeds.

So I decided to try blocknews block accounts instead of astrawebs (which I've happily used for years) since you guys have a slightly better deal on 200GB block accounts.

No matter what server,port, or amount of connections I try the same thing happens with my new blocknews 200GB block account.

The download begins at acceptable speeds and then quickly get throttled and eventually goes to 0kbs. After a few seconds it will slowly creep up and then go back down. This exact pattern happens everytime. This is unacceptable and will never be able to download anything like this. This never happened with astraweb and isnt a problem with my internet or network settings.

No idea why this happens when astraweb worked so great. Hope you guys can magically make my account working or tell me a special setting to enter in newsbin to get me account working properly.


your move blocknews!

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Originally Posted by tmas333

Just sent those bastards this ticket...

New account not working properly. Crippled DL speeds.

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What server and port are you using? Are you using SSL? Double check your server settings. Try switching servers and port.

US Server:
usnews.blocknews.net
EU Server:
eunews.blocknews.net

usnews.blocknews.net allows connections on ports 23,119, 2000,880,8080,9000

eunews.blocknews.net allows connections on ports 23,119, 2000,880,8080,9000

For SSL connections on either server, you may use either port 443, 563, 5563

Like I said before I tried every combination of those things they all behave exactly the same.

Never had any problems with Blocknews. They can't be throttling you they don't care how fast the block is used.

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Originally Posted by tmas333

Like I said before I tried every combination of those things they all behave exactly the same.

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You still haven't posted who your ISP is, or any tracert information from your location to Blocknews. I used Astra for many years as my 'fills' server, now that they are my 'primary' I use like many others Blocknews as 'fills', and have never seen any slowdowns from them whatsoever on two different ISP's over the last 5+ years.

The only 'variance' I see is that when the 'electronic bucket brigade' that is usenet goes off-track a bit (skips or fades on the major server plants like Astra or Giga), Blocknews is affected as well but it seems to 'recover' much faster to those skips, filling them in nicely, quicker than the 'big boys', possibly because their peering is a bit better thought out.

I'd be looking at my ISP first, and staring right at the route the data is taking as a potential problem, not Blocknews, and watching if that route changes during the periods of 'slow downs' and such.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tmas333

Like I said before I tried every combination of those things they all behave exactly the same.

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Did Blocknews customer support respond to your support ticket? Are you still having issues?

I am experiencing the same exact issue. :angry:

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Originally Posted by lukin42

I am experiencing the same exact issue. :angry:

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The issue of repeatedly ignoring Beck's advice ? :lol:

I've had a few periods of slow speeds on this service in the distant past, it was always temporary and only affected older files. Using more connections usually helped.