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ROAD RUNNER character name and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. © 2001

Road Runner Newsgroup Questions

Does Road Runner have any newsgroups?

• Road Runner currently carries over 29,000 newsgroups.

• Road Runner has created several newsgroups thus allowing users a means to communicate in order to help one another on using Road Runner, the Internet, and many other interest in general.

• The Road Runner news groups are not available from outside the home system. The news server will only allow access from a machine that has a home Road Runner IP address.

Road Runner seems to be missing some post in their newsgroups.

• Road Runner receives it's USENET feed from MCI and Sprint. The connection to Sprint is a direct Fiber Optic link while MCI is accessed through Bell Atlantic. Originally MCI was the only USENET feed but with the addition of Sprint in the March of 1997, Road Runner's coverage tripled.

A post starts with the user. When a users post a message to a newsgroup, that 'post' is stamped with the date and an id. That post works it way from that user's Internet Provider to the Internet. Once the message hits the Internet anything, and everything, could happen. In the prefect world Internet Providers would only need one USENET feed but that's not to be. The post may reach MCI or Sprint or neither or both. Road Runner continual receives it's USENET feeds and the messages received from MCI and Sprint are compared by the date and id, it saves one copy of the duplicates and fills in post that one supplies that the other is missing. By having two feeds Road Runner increases it's chance of getting a post on it's Newsgroup Server and then to you.

How all does Road Runner hold a post before the message 'expires'?

• Road Runner will hold binaries for three days and non-binaries for six days. This may vary depending upon the size of the USENET feed received on any particular day.

Newsgroup alternatives.

• There are commerical USENET providers that have numerous feeds to provide better coverage.

Airnews (www.airnews.net)

Altopia (www.altopia.com)

• Remember that even though these USENET providers have multiple feeds (5 & 6 perspectively) they do not have prefect feeds… no one does, this is the Internet.
  
  

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