Usenet going bye bye

[Ty Unes]

So, I have a few questions.

First, I want to let you all know that I called Time-Warner Cable (45 
minute call) and logged a formal complaint about the lack of Usenet 
service. The decision to pull newsgroup feeds to TW customers is not 
neccessary. With the goal of trying to curtail piracy and pornography, 
other ISP's are simply filtering the "bad" stuff (porn, movies, 
software, etc. - binaries) and leaving the good stuff (text only groups) 
available to their customers. A MUCH better decision. I would ask anyone 
who has TW Internet to call and complain the same.

I've been shopping around for Usenet service from 3rd. party sources. 
What I find is quite expensive! Seems that most commercial newsgroup 
services set their prices with the heavy downloader in mind offering 
binary groups and charging by the GB. $20.00 / month is simply too much 
especially when this service has been (since my first internet 
experience) included in the cost of internet access. Now, I'm paying 
$40.00 / month to TW for i-net access AND having to pay $20.00 / month 
for news service.

It's simply unacceptable for TW to reduce the value of their internet 
service without asking me, and without reducing the cost of that 
service. Talk about ripping me off! This really pisses me off!


My question is, does anyone know of a text only service that is truly 
affordable? $20.00 / year? I have no need for binary feeds. I don't want 
to pay for binary feeds and I don't see me hogging GB's of bandwidth 
every month to justify the $20.00 (or more) / month cost.

This being said, I understand that there are a few "free" news servers 
out there. I have checked into them. I'm just looking for a quality 
newsgroup service that has a reasonable rate for us that use Usenet for 
what it was intended, text based communication.