RIP Usenet

[#1]

No Usenet this morning - DNS error. So I see there was an "announcement" here that Usenet was being turned off, but I only had cause to look for it after the event. Not that it would have been easy to tell Usenet users specifically. 

All par for the course at PlusNet, retreating to a minimal service - not that Usenet is exactly crucial. I'll sign up somewhere else.

And which "Label" should I use for this?

[#2]

I tried Eternal September (free) but it was pretty flaky (which I half expected) so have returned to news.individual.net. It's only 10 euros (about £8) a year and 100% reliable.

[#3]

If I remember correctly news.individual.net was once provided by plusnet as their news server.. I think BT dabbled with that as well. However I could be suffering from flakey memory. Ich bin ein Berliner.

[#4]

@grumble - I don't think it ever was.

It used to be in-house way back when, before it was outsourced to Supernews, who were later acquired by Giganews.

History here for anybody curious.

[#5]

Having unscrambled the dregs (eggs?) in my brainbox it could be that the service was once free-to-use (operated by a tertiary educational establishment). Thanks for prompting the infill

[#6]

Conpleting the unscrambling.