Human Being
2006-06-10 01:11:04 UTC
Note the following:
"Usenet service is not federally regulated and so Sympatico can
cut it unilaterally without reducing your ISP fees"
He also makes the comment that usenet activity has dropped recently -
because of Rogers decision to drop usenet a few months ago. Isin't
that a sort of chicken-and-egg situation? Did Rogers drop usenet
because only a few of it's users were using it - or is it the case now
that only a few Rogers customers are using usenet BECAUSE rogers
dropped it?
-----------------------
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041102.gtkapicablog/BNStory/Technology/home/
CYBERIA: No reason to complain?
JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update
Posted June 6, 2006, at 4:20 p.m.
In Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a bureaucratic
alien with a taste for bad poetry admonishes our hero for not knowing
that the Earth was to be blown up to make room for a hyperspace bypass
because the plans had been on display on Alpha Centauri for the
previous nine months. Actually, they were "on display in the bottom of
a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the
door saying Beware of the Leopard."
I always think of this whenever Sympatico makes changes to its
Internet service.
On June 6, Sympatico discontinued its Usenet newsgroup service. All
existing Sympatico newsgroups have been removed. Except, oddly, for
Sympatico business customers, for whom the newsgroup servers are still
running.
Of course, Sympatico is keeping its Web-based discussion forums (at
www.bell.ca/internetforum). And anyone who wants to keep subscribing
to Usenet can go to NewsHosting, a Usenet provider unaffiliated with
Sympatico, which will give Bell Sympatico customers 1 GB per month of
Usenet service at no cost. Only this service does not let you post to
those groups, just read them.
If, however, you want the premium service, NewsHosting will be happy
to provide it at $285 per year.
I don't recall any notice of the take-down, which was probably on file
in that same lavatory on Alpha Centauri.
Nor did other customers, who called Sympatico tech support, only to be
told that Usenet service is not federally regulated and so Sympatico
can cut it unilaterally without reducing your ISP fees. It was, in
short, a freebie, and we can't complain.
I do understand that Usenet newsgroup activity has fallen off
dramatically of late; in December, when Rogers cancelled its Usenet
service, I was told that the number of Rogers subscribers still
exercising access to the newsgroups was down to single-digit
percentages.
There might very well be a good business case for dropping Usenet, but
assassinating it strikes me as heavy-handed. And if equivalent access
to NewsHosting's Usenet service is really worth $285 a year, I can't
help but see this business decision as a windfall for Bell Canada.
I really do resent the fact that I was either not told about it, or
was told way down under the usual self-promotional blather I get
regularly from Sympatico, which tells me breathlessly about services
that hold no interest for me, and which I reject as spam. If Sympatico
had indeed mentioned it in the fine print, the information might as
well have been on Alpha Centauri, and I would have found it if I had
only bothered to go there.
"Usenet service is not federally regulated and so Sympatico can
cut it unilaterally without reducing your ISP fees"
He also makes the comment that usenet activity has dropped recently -
because of Rogers decision to drop usenet a few months ago. Isin't
that a sort of chicken-and-egg situation? Did Rogers drop usenet
because only a few of it's users were using it - or is it the case now
that only a few Rogers customers are using usenet BECAUSE rogers
dropped it?
-----------------------
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041102.gtkapicablog/BNStory/Technology/home/
CYBERIA: No reason to complain?
JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update
Posted June 6, 2006, at 4:20 p.m.
In Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a bureaucratic
alien with a taste for bad poetry admonishes our hero for not knowing
that the Earth was to be blown up to make room for a hyperspace bypass
because the plans had been on display on Alpha Centauri for the
previous nine months. Actually, they were "on display in the bottom of
a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the
door saying Beware of the Leopard."
I always think of this whenever Sympatico makes changes to its
Internet service.
On June 6, Sympatico discontinued its Usenet newsgroup service. All
existing Sympatico newsgroups have been removed. Except, oddly, for
Sympatico business customers, for whom the newsgroup servers are still
running.
Of course, Sympatico is keeping its Web-based discussion forums (at
www.bell.ca/internetforum). And anyone who wants to keep subscribing
to Usenet can go to NewsHosting, a Usenet provider unaffiliated with
Sympatico, which will give Bell Sympatico customers 1 GB per month of
Usenet service at no cost. Only this service does not let you post to
those groups, just read them.
If, however, you want the premium service, NewsHosting will be happy
to provide it at $285 per year.
I don't recall any notice of the take-down, which was probably on file
in that same lavatory on Alpha Centauri.
Nor did other customers, who called Sympatico tech support, only to be
told that Usenet service is not federally regulated and so Sympatico
can cut it unilaterally without reducing your ISP fees. It was, in
short, a freebie, and we can't complain.
I do understand that Usenet newsgroup activity has fallen off
dramatically of late; in December, when Rogers cancelled its Usenet
service, I was told that the number of Rogers subscribers still
exercising access to the newsgroups was down to single-digit
percentages.
There might very well be a good business case for dropping Usenet, but
assassinating it strikes me as heavy-handed. And if equivalent access
to NewsHosting's Usenet service is really worth $285 a year, I can't
help but see this business decision as a windfall for Bell Canada.
I really do resent the fact that I was either not told about it, or
was told way down under the usual self-promotional blather I get
regularly from Sympatico, which tells me breathlessly about services
that hold no interest for me, and which I reject as spam. If Sympatico
had indeed mentioned it in the fine print, the information might as
well have been on Alpha Centauri, and I would have found it if I had
only bothered to go there.