As many of you know we have been involved in forum and Usenet newsgroup discussions for many years, since well before I started here at Plusnet. Having this form of communication with our customers and other interested people from around the ADSL world can have both benefits and drawbacks (we like to think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks). I’m going to go through a number of different areas in this blog ranging from why we monitor forums, to the roles of the moderators and how I keep on top of issues raised. More…

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Earlier this month Critical Path (whom some will remember from some of our early anti-spam trials), announced the sale of certain assets of its SuperNews Usenet access business, including its software, commercial customer base, trade names and other elements of goodwill, to Giganews, an industry leader in Usenet newsgroup services.
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In a recent news article we announced that we would shortly be outsourcing the provisioning of our Usenet service to a third party.

The preliminary work to do this is now complete and customers can now access the new platform using the details below:

Server: plusnet.vsrv-ams.supernews.net
Port: 119 or 443
Username (optional): existing
Password (optional): existing

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Usenet, for those not in the know, is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system. It’s the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use and was founded way back in 1980, long before the advent of email.

Think of it as a text based alternative to web-based discussion boards like our very own portal and Community Site forums. Usenet is a great resource for getting help with problems, or discussing interests with similarly minded people. There are over 60,000 active text-based Usenet groups which cover anything from the latest TV shows all the way to information on how best to mow your garden lawn! There’s even a group for stamp collecting if you’re that way inclined! More…

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