Re: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down

krw wrote:
On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:15:26 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

krw wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:38:22 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

krw wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:11:16 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

krw wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:58:34 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

krw wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:54:37 -0700, Joerg <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
<snip>

Some banks tend to drag on, maybe they play with the money in that time. I mean, two days delay divided by 365 times the total transfer volume, that's quite some dough.
IIRC, it wasn't a bank issue. It was whoever they collect through in
Left Pondia. I don't remember the details. It's been at least five
years.

If this works I'll probably just pay in 50 Euros or so and have peace of mind the next five years. Someone told me you can actually do that.
After the first year the charge is automatic. They're really good
about letting you know ahead of time too, in case you want to cancel.
Not really. AFAIK you must initiate the payment.
I've only initiated one payment. The last four or five have been
automatic, with ample notification by both parties.
Hmm. Would be fine with me though, less hassle. But AFAIR one has to give the other party what's called "Einzugsermaechtigung" over there, an authorization to draft from an account (with rights to have that reversed).
You had them withdraw money from an account? I'd *never* do that on
this side of the pond. "Pull" from an account is asking for trouble.
Yes, the European "push" is a far better scheme.

Now I am confused. What exactly is happeing with your payment and who initiates it?

I don't really know, Individual I expect. Oh, I think I see the
confusion. When I said "both parties", I meant Individual and whoever
does their clearing on this side of the big pond. Both notify me well
before the transfer takes place and I have the option to cancel.

From Europe I only know "pull", not "push".

Now I'm confused. We have a "pull" system here. They convert a check
to an EFT (Check-21) and *pull* the money out of your account. ...


Ahm, that means they do withdraw money from your account. Above you said you'd never do that.


... From
everything I've read about the European banking system, they give you
the account information and you *push* the money into their account.
Therefor, they cannot double-dip (or worse) like they can here.


That's for one-time transactions. The banking system over there is more modern, no checks, you just wire all the time. But for frequent transactions such as phone, water, electricity and such it's customary to give them the power to pull per month. You can instantly dispute unjustified charges and they get credited back. This avoids overdue bills when your flight home gets delayed big time, or you decide to tack on another couple weeks at grampa's because he suffered a stroke.


I wish their service level was universal.
Universal, as in binaries? I wish there was at least a limited file size binary they could carry, for scope plots, schematics, layout questions that people might have. The web site upload method is quite tedious when compared to a simple one-click file attachment.
Universal is in "the level of service I can expect from all companies,
Internet and otherwise".
That's the problem, nearly all ISPs have canned binaries. Now most are canning Usenet completely :-(
That's a *different* problem. ;-)

Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that many alt-groups have become less useful to nearly useless.

Yes, though that isn't too much of a change for the alt hierarchy.


I don't know how badly a.b.s.e. tanked but alt.home.automation went from quite active to total anemia, and fast.


To be fair, I do a reasonable amount of business via the Internet and
have found a bunch of excellent companies to deal with. They know
that service is what they're selling.

So far I can't complain about AT&T lately. Rocky in the first years and customer support required a large dose of persistence on my side but I never had a problem in that area. The last few years was smooth sailing. No major outages except when a kid slammed his car into a big green metal box (but the good thing is he lived).

I've used AT&T's business Internet service (attglobal) for fifteen
years (it used to be IBM.net) and have been very pleased with the
service. I now also use AT&T.net for DSL access, but the technical
level of the service isn't the same. AT&T.net treats their customers
like idiots, for one. It takes forever to troubleshoot a problem
because every call has to go through the same troubleshooting script.
After nine months, I still can't access the email servers. It's
simply not worth going through another call to them. BTW, AT&T.net
and AT&T global don't talk to each other. In fact, I'm convinced that
they don't know each other exists.

My server is sbcglobal in S.F., whatever that means. Never had trouble with email, just Usenet once in a while. Last time I asked to be "escalated" and a very friendly woman with a Philippines accent (probably outsource to Manila) answered. Judging from our chat she must have either had a degree in CS or was close to that level. Within less than 10mins she said "Oh, I think I see where the problem is, call me back if not fixed within the hour, my extension is ...". Less than 15mins later tons of fresh headers roared into my newsreader as if she had pulled a gigantic plug somewhere.


The last few years was smooth sailing. No major outages except when a kid slammed his car into a big green metal box (but the good thing is he lived).

Yeah, a few hours of Internet outage is better than if the "big green
box" were potted in concrete. ...


The boy would be dead if they'd done that. I'd rather he live, we all made similar mistakes when we were young.


... I see people brag about armoring mail
boxes, too.


Ours _is_ armored :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
.

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