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Verizon and alt.*
Usenet is an ancient system, reliant upon archaic and inefficient technology, that is used by a small minority of Internet users yet accounts for massive amounts of bandwidth and disproportionate support costs.
In order to properly process the raw news feeds, a server must be extremely powerful and have a very large pipe. (I'm not going to bother explaining the reasons for this, aside from the fact that the protocols involved are almost entirely useless in the modern age). As such, ISPs that support it will provide these servers for their users, effectively replicating all of Usenet locally.
As you can imagine, offering this service is very expensive. Despite this, there is nothing at all to be gained from doing so. There are commercial providers out there that offer Usenet access for the extreme minority of Internet users who desire it (for a fee), and no one else cares.
Now, there are two major misconceptions about all of this. Namely, that Verizon is dropping all of Usenet, and that they are somehow blocking access to it entirely. I point out the following:
As for the second point, VERIZON ISN'T BLOCKING ANYTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.
All Verizon has done is drop their own, optional, consensual, local hosting of alt.*. Anyone is free to access alt.* in any way they wish: Verizon just won't go out and get it all for them anymore.
In order to properly process the raw news feeds, a server must be extremely powerful and have a very large pipe. (I'm not going to bother explaining the reasons for this, aside from the fact that the protocols involved are almost entirely useless in the modern age). As such, ISPs that support it will provide these servers for their users, effectively replicating all of Usenet locally.
As you can imagine, offering this service is very expensive. Despite this, there is nothing at all to be gained from doing so. There are commercial providers out there that offer Usenet access for the extreme minority of Internet users who desire it (for a fee), and no one else cares.
Now, there are two major misconceptions about all of this. Namely, that Verizon is dropping all of Usenet, and that they are somehow blocking access to it entirely. I point out the following:
- Verizon is only dropping alt.*
- Verizon is NOT blocking ANYTHING
As for the second point, VERIZON ISN'T BLOCKING ANYTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.
All Verizon has done is drop their own, optional, consensual, local hosting of alt.*. Anyone is free to access alt.* in any way they wish: Verizon just won't go out and get it all for them anymore.
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