FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
General Usenet Information
Potential Meganetnews Customers
- What is Meganetnews?
- What plans are available & what is the cost?
- What is SSL-encrypted access?
- How do I add SSL-encrypted access to my current plan?
- What are block accounts?
- Do block accounts expire?
- What types of payments does Meganetnews accept?
- How can I contact Meganetnews?
- Does Meganetnews log what I download?
- Does Meganetnews censor newsgroups?
Service Questions
- What happens if I go over my bandwidth allowance?
- What time does my bandwidth reset?
- How can I change to a different plan?
- How can I cancel my account?
- How do I see how much bandwidth I have used?
- How many concurrent connections do you allow?
- How do I update my billing information?
What are newsgroups?
Long before Napster, LimeWire, BitTorrent, P2P, and even Google, there was Usenet.
Originally used to post text based messages by engineers and geeks, users quickly found ways to upload encoded files, thereby creating one of the oldest file sharing mechanisms on the internet. As messages were (and still are) limited in size, larger binary files were split into multiple messages, and assembled again on the end user's machine. Although the Usenet has been around since 1980, and has millions of users worldwide, it is largely overlooked the vast file-sharing vehicle that it is.
It did not take long for these message systems to reach enormous volumes of traffic, making categorizing and searching messages cumbersome at best. To solve this problem, the Usenet was subdivided into genres, each with their own hierarchies of children groups. The 'Big 8' hierarchies of Usenet are: comp.*, news.*, sci.*, rec.*, soc.*, talk.*, and misc.*. You can visit Wikipedia's entry on Usenet hierarchies there.
As computers evolved over the next 30 years, newsgroups became easier than ever to access and browse. With easy to operate clients available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, most people find it far simpler, and more enjoyable, to download files from Usenet than peer-to-peer networks. The internet has made it easier than ever to find the files you are looking for on the Usenet with indexing sites that make searching and browsing binary messages painless.
How do I use newsgroups?
Newsgroups are sorted into a hierarchy, which represents them much like a family tree. The most basic categories that newsgroups are sorted into are known as top-level hierarchies. There are eight top-level hierarchies that are carried by almost all newsgroup hosts, which are known as the 'Big 8'. These hierarchies are:
- comp.* - computer-related discussions
- humanities.* - literature, religion, history, etc. discussions
- misc.* - any newsgroup that doesn't belong in another hierarchy
- news.* - discussions regarding Usenet itself (creation/removal of newsgroups, abuse issues, etc.)
- rec.* - discussions regarding recreation of all types
- sci.* - discussions of scientific topics
- soc.* - current events & societal issues, as well as simple socializing ("chatting")
- talk.* - discussions of sensitive topics; newsgroups here tend to include very lively debates, where soc.* is more casual
Under these broad umbrellas is where individual newsgroups can be found. Let's examine the rec.* hierarchy as an example. rec.sport is a newsgroup devoted to sporting in general, but it is so general that not many users choose to post there. A step deeper would contain newsgroups devoted to particular sports, rec.sport.football being an example. This newsgroup is still a bit too general; there is nothing to distinguish between American or European style football. Going even further into the hierarchy, newsgroups such as rec.sport.football.college can be found. This could go further and further into newsgroups devoted to particular teams or regions.
In addition to the Big 8, there is also an alt.* hierarchy which has much more relaxed guidelines for the newsgroups it contains. Short for 'alternative,' this hierarchy was meant to contain newsgroups that would not be allowed in any of the Big 8, particularly for taboo topics. However, because of its lax nature, the alt.* hierarchy has many innocuous newsgroups that might seem better placed in a different hierarchy. Generally, alt.* topics have a narrower focus than those in other newsgroups, discussing a single player as opposed to a sports team in general, for example.
After finding a newsgroup that interests you, it is necessary to subscribe to the newsgroup. This tells your newsgroup software which groups you would always like to see, so that it isn't necessary to browse through the hierarchies every time you connect.
Once you have subscribed to a newsgroup, your software will display all of the headers in the newsgroup. An article's header is the same as the subject line in an email, a concise summary of the content in an article. Replies to an article will have "RE:" in their headers, again behaving just like email. Some newsgroups have hundreds of thousands of articles, especially through a high retention host like Meganetnews, and most newsgroup software allows you to limit how many headers to obtain at once to conserve resources. Reading an article is as simple as selecting its header.
Replying to an article is about as simple as writing an email, but before sending anything to a newsgroup, some things should be said about the accepted conventions of posting in newsgroups. Newsgroups are one of the oldest group communication forums on the Internet, and quite a few users today have been accessing them for a number of years. Some of the norms established by the newsgroup community over the years have even been adopted in other forms of online communication like email and message boards. For example, the term 'spam' was first used to describe unsolicited advertisements posted in newsgroups. Many of the rules of Netiquette (Internet etiquette) also developed in the newsgroups. Observing the rules of Netiquette is probably the most important thing to do when posting to a newsgroup. Netiquette rules are largely unspoken, and explaining them is a subject all its own, but the best practice is to keep your articles well-composed and civil. Most newsgroups are peer-moderated, meaning that the users themselves enforce the rules, and a "Golden Rule" attitude is the best way to respect that: as a user, post only what you would like to see posted.
What is Meganetnews?
Meganetnews is one of the world's largest Tier 1 Newsgroup Service Providers (NSP) for individuals and Internet Service Providers. Meganetnews manages international Usenet server clusters designed to offer the fastest, most reliable Usenet experience possible. With binary and text newsgroups retention that will never leave you high and dry and 99%+ completion rates, Meganetnews provides the highest newsgroup service available for Usenet users.
What plans are available & what is the cost?
Visit our simple and secure online signup page and then simply select the account that will fit your needs, based on how much you expect to download each month, and how often you wish to be invoiced. If you're not sure what account will work for you, remember that you can always change the service package that you are on to better suit your needs! Check our signup page for details. .
What is SSL-encrypted access?
SSL-Encryption is a method for protecting your information as you use your Usenet account. It encrypts (scrambles) your information so that what you download cannot be deciphered.
How do I add SSL-encrypted access to my current plan?
You do not need to. All Plans include 256-bit SSL.
What are block accounts?
Block accounts are an easy, no-commitment way to use our service. Block accounts essentially let you pay as you go, buying blocks of bandwidth whenever you run out. A block account means no subscription, so you're free to control how often and how much you pay.
Do block accounts expire?
Block accounts will never expire. So if you buy a large block you can expect to have that bandwidth available until you've completely used it.
What types of payments does Meganetnews accept?
Meganetnews accepts the following major credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. We also accept orders through the mail and even FAX. Check out the Contact page for information on mail order and FAX orders.
How can I contact Meganetnews?
Please refer to the Contact page for information on how to contact us.
Does Meganetnews log what I download?
We do not and cannot log what you download. All we can see is the volume of information that you download, not the content.
Does Meganetnews censor newsgroups?
Meganetnews does not censor any newsgroup carried on our servers. The only exception will be binary posts sent to 'text' newsgroups or articles identified by our filters as clearly being Spam.
What happens if I go over my bandwidth allowance?
When you reach your download limit, your account will temporarily become inactive until a new billing cycle starts. When this occurs, you have several options available to you:
- You can recycle your account and start the next
billing period early. This can be done by logging
into your Account Manager and following the 'Renew
Account' link.
Recycling your account will start the next billing cycle immediately. This will automatically bill your account and will change your billing date to the day you recycled your account.
- You can upgrade your account to a higher download
level. This can be done by logging into your Account
Manager, following the 'Renew Account' link and changing
your subscription plan.
Upgrading your account to the next level will automatically bill your account for the new plan and it will also automatically increase your account download limit to match the service package that you have just upgraded to. Your monthly billing date will change to the day you upgraded your account.
If you would like the entire download amount of your new account available immediately without any usage from before your upgrade, we suggest you recycle your old account early and then upgrade.
- You can wait for your regular renewal date to reset
your download counter.
- If you have used all of your block account, you can purchase more blocks by logging into your Account manager and follow the 'Add Bytes' link. Note that this option is only available for block accounts.
What time does my bandwidth reset?
You can expect your bandwidth to reset between 12 AM and 1 AM EST on your cycle date.
How can I change to a different plan?
You can upgrade your account to a higher or lower download level by logging into your Account Manager, following the 'Renew Account' link and changing your subscription plan. This will change your billing date to the day you upgrade your account.
How can I cancel my account?
Cancellation requests will only be accepted through the cancellation form located on the Contact page. Warning: deleting your account using your Account Manager will delete all of your information and terminate your account access immediately.
How do I see how much bandwidth I have used?
You can see how much bandwidth you have remaining by logging into your Account Manager.
How many concurrent connections do you allow?
All Plans include 20 concurrent connections.
How do I update my billing information?
Simply login to your Account Manager and follow the 'Account History' link, then the 'Update Payment Card Details' link to update your billing information.