Are there any BellSouth.net users in here? I still cannot access a Usenet (Newsgroup) that this IP will support. The only one they ever had on their HP was deja.com and we all know what happened to them. A phone call to their tech support just gets me the answer that they do not handle that kind of question.
I have tried downloading Free Agent and several other free newreaders but once I enter bellsouth.net into the General Preferences section and then try to go online to choose NG’s, I get Host Name Not Found.
I am using Win98 with Fast Access ADSL and have plenty of memory. Just wondered if anyone else was having a problem. I am used to posting to about 10 different NG’s and I miss not being able to communicate with my fellow posters.
You can buy a terrific & naughty newsfeed from altopia, supernews (I prefer), newscene, etc, to use with your ISP. They are usually around $8 per month.
Yes, of course it would, handy, and you advised me on that before. Not having had both eyes open yet, I mistakenly left that off this morning’s post. Sorry to have wasted your time and the space, but it looks like those of us who are used to having free newsgroups are going to have to wait until GOOGLE gets its act together and allows posting on what they acquired from deja. That isn’t meant to answer my own question, BTW. I am still hoping for correspondence from another BellSouth.net user.
Well, I’ll be a Bellsouth FastAccess user any day now, so I’ll find out soon enough. I’m switching from my cable provider which uses Supernews as its news server. If I don’t get some kind of Usenet access with BS, I’m going to raise holy hell.
I find it absolutely bizarre that they wouldn’t handle a question on whether or not they provide access to what is considered a standard service by most ISPs. I’m guessing that the tech (read: random idiot off the street) you talked to probably didn’t even know what Usenet was and he blew you off.
Don’t worry, though. I’m persistant. As soon as I get my modem, I’ll get to the bottom of this. If they can’t help me with such a simple issue, I’ll take that as an indication of their overall service, cancel my account, and go back to cable. Hopefully the thread of lost business (isn’t it sad that it always has to come to that?) should get me some answers.
As for bellsouth, yes bellsouth supports usenet, and yes, it’s news.bellsouth.net. They have shitty message retention, though. It’s not just message retention, it’s missing messages that never get posted. I’m not real happy with their usenet. I get better retention on my AOL account that I never use anymore, but still pay for.
Quasimodem, yeah I looked at your ISP website (what a joke) & searched the net fruitlessly to find what usenet server you have & then I just guessed.
If you are using netscape, you can read the newsgroups with their free newserver, Under Communicator, it should say NEWSGROUPS, you click on that & hope for the best.