Why is Aus newsfeed so bad?

[Reiner]

I am using SwiftDSL from work but not at home (where I have Optus Cable). A couple of days ago I posted several photos to alt.binaries.pictures.orchids but none of them made it through to Swift's news servers. The files weren't even particularly large, around 100k when encoded.

Here is a screen shot of what it looks like in OE from the Optus news server:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/wardead/utopia/alt.binaries.pictures.orchids.gif

I did get replies to the post, so most images made it to overseas servers, just none to another ISP within Australia. Had the same problem with iinet (though when I did a similar thing a few months ago some images at least made it).

Why is usenet in Australia so poor?

Firstly, Optus and Telstra seem to have a better feed but it is still hopeless for multipart binaries.

Secondly, why don't Australian posts even get propagated properly?

We're already paying $ for a service but it seems the only way to get a full service is to pay a third party extra (ie. an overseas news provider that have complete feeds).

[Toxic Boy]

I have to totally agree with this point - I was happy to see the Swiftel was offering unmetered access to their newsgroups but on the other hand when any single or multi-part binaries are RARELY making it to the Swiftel news server, it really doesnt matter anyway.

[grozzie]

This I find to be Swiftels only major flaw, no decent usenet offerings.
Even on Netspace before I joined Swiftel I had far better access to groups & upto the minute postings.

I hope that this issue is looked into & rectified accordingly in the near future.

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

Rather strange this propogation, when I posted articles on our Perth server they made it to Sydney, it had different feed providers.

A few people say our Sydney server is about 1.5hr lagging and our feed comes to us via sprint.

Today I am culling down the binary groups a fair bit, to see if that helps.


Richard