What is this?

The Internode Usenet/NNTP news service offers access to the global usenet news discussion community via feeds from Giganews and Astraweb.

This community, which pre-dates 'the web', is a global distribution system for shared discussion and for the dissemination of information. Due to the extremely high amount of data flow required to maintain a full news feed, pretty much no (other) ISP in Australia offers this service as a standard part of their service offering to customers (at no extra cost).

Our aim is to provide our customers with the best full-featured, long retention, high completion-rate usenet access service in Australia.

How do I access the service?

Fire up your Usenet news tool of choice (there are plenty of them available as freeware and shareware at your favourite file archive) and point your news reader to this host:

news.internode.on.net

Note: this is not a web service, its an NNTP (port 119) service.

You need to use a Usenet news reader application, NOT a web browser, to access Usenet news.

Can you suggest some Usenet news client software?

An easy example of a widely available software package that can read usenet news is Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com) - just create a new account, and select it as a Usenet news account and follow your nose.

There are a lot of other Usenet news readers out there, many of which are optimised for particular purposes (file downloading, discussion threading, etc etc). Look around and you'll find lots of them to choose from.

A particularly good Usenet application for Mac OS-X is the shareware package Unison (http://www.panic.com/unison).

Do I need to log on or authenticate to use the service?

No, you don't need any additional username/password to access the service, but the service is only available to Internode customers while connected to the Internode network. The service has considerable running costs so naturally we can only provide it to our direct customers.

How many concurrent connections can I make to the news server?

The current limit is 8 concurrent connections.

How do I switch between the Giganews and Astraweb feeds?

If you'd like to connect specifically to Giganews or Astraweb, you can point your client toward the hostnames:

giganews.internode.on.net or astraweb.internode.on.net

Using Internode's Premium Usenet Services

What are the costs for using the service? Premium Usenet services usually have monthly fees!

The service is available to all Internode customers at no extra cost, representing a substantial monthly cost saving for those customers currently paying subscription fees for premium news server access.

Are my downloads of news from this server counted against my download quota?

Yes, they are. We do have to haul the data across the planet for you, after all.

Are there any newsgroups you block?

We generally carry everything Supernews has (which is almost all the groups there are...), with the main exception of the very small number of newsgroups that the Australian Government requires us (and all other Australian ISPs with news feeds) to block.

This is not at all a new thing, though the government are currently in the process of tightening the processes up to make sure all ISP's properly comply with them. We plan to comply with all lawful directions we receive, as we must (and should).

What groups does the Australian Government require you to block?

Sorry, but we can't tell you. The laws in this area require us to block the groups the Government tells us to block and requires that we do not disclose the blocklist itself.

Can I post articles to Usenet

Sure! It's a fully operational usenet news connection. Please bear in mind that the contents of your posting should respect the Internode Terms and Conditions and AUP.

Do you take any position on the content in the Usenet system

No, we do not. We are only the messenger.

As previously noted, we block newsgroups as directed by the government, otherwise we are in the business of providing a carriage service to our customers, not an editorial service.

You access Usenet news services at your own discretion and your own risk - just like the rest of the Internet. Just bear the Internode Standard Form of Agreement and Acceptable Usage Policy in mind.

If I happen across a newsgroup that I think might contain prohibited content, what can I do about that?

You can report it to the ACMA using an online form on the ACMA website.

ACMA will then investigate the content concerned, and if appropriate, will arrange for Australian ISPs to remove access to that content via their services in accordance with their legal obligations to do so when directed by the ACMA to do so.

What if you don't carry a particular newsgroup?

We don't live in a perfect world. We carry what our upstream providers offer us, which can change from time to time, minus anything we are legally directed to block.

How many newsgroups are there?

At the time of writing this entry, there are a little over 30,000 active newsgroups on the service we provide.

Some other newsgroup providers claim to carry more than 100,000 newsgroups, but there really are only around 30,000 active groups.

The others are either defunct groups, or mis-spellings of existing group names (!).

For all practical purposes, the service Internode provides is a full, USA grade, premium Usenet news service.

What is the retention time for newsgroups in the service?

Our retention tracks that of the largest dedicated news services available today.