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Summary: PowerUsenet's accounts are missing
important features, and as a result we thought their
accounts were overpriced. In on our experience there
are other unlimited providers that are a better
value.
When we tested PowerUsenet, their speed results were
good, but they weren't the best. We downloaded their
newsgroup list at a speed of 1,651 groups per sec,
which was slower than several providers (NNTPjunkie
1,971 groups per sec, Newsgroups.Com 1,953 groups
per sec, etc.) Their upload speed (3MB file = 77
sec) and download speed (3MB file = 18 sec) rated
average to above-average. As an example, the fastest
upload speed we recorded during our tests was 71 sec
(NNTPjunkie) and the fastest download speed was 17
sec (NewsGuy, Usenetserver & Giganews)
PowerUsenet's completion rate was 99+%, and we
verified their retention to be 200 days within
multi-part binary newsgroups. Unfortunately their
connection limit (6) was the lowest of all the
unlimited providers we reviewed. Most providers
allowed 20 simultaneous connections on average, with
NNTPjunkie (our pick for best unlimited provider)
offering the most generous connection limit (32
connections).
Too many account plans can be confusing, but we were
surprised to see that PowerUsenet doesn't offer
metered account plans, which could be a problem for
people that don't need unlimited access and don't
want to pay higher rates for it. Their cheapest
unlimited plan is $14.95 month, but is limited to 6
connections and no SSL encryption, or you can pay
$19.99 month to increase connections to 12 and add
SSL. In our opinion there are other providers that
are cheaper & offer more account features
(NNTPjunkie - $12.50 month & UsenetServer - $13.32
month were cheaper).
As far as free account extras (NNTP & Web access,
newsgroup search, email, newsreader software, etc.)
you will have better luck finding them with other
unlimited providers. While PowerUsenet offers a
trial, we thought it was inconvenient that posting
access was disabled. Their support staff can only be
reached by email, but we had all our questions
answered, with an average response time of 1hr 57min. |
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