AT&T's Loss, May Be Usenet's Gain
NewsAdmin Staff Writer

During the summer of 2008 several national ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner pulled the plug on their binary newsgroups, citing pressure from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The AG's office had reportedly found child pornography within a few unnamed newsgroups, and the above mentioned ISPs decided to drop all of their binary newsgroups as a precaution. On June 15, 2009 AT&T announced that they would be closing their entire Usenet service to further support Cuomo's efforts. No more binary newsgroups, no more text newsgroups, no more Usenet in any shape or form for AT&T customers.

These decisions have incited lively debate amongst Usenet users, with some people speculating that this had nothing to do with child pornography, and everything to do with sagging bottom lines. The AG's office was not the reason, but the convenient excuse that was being used by AT&T to cut popular customer services and operating costs. This wasn't a crusade to save the children, but a PR opportunity for one politician, and an opportunity for companies to save a few bucks at the expense of consumers who continue to pay more and receive less from their ISPs.

It's also been suggested that Usenet has been a thorn in the sides of ISPs... a necessary evil of sorts... detracting from their efforts to promote their own products. With Usenet out of the way, it will be easier for these ISPs to encourage customers to use their own social networking products, or their pay-for-play content (movies, music, etc.).

All of the above has led some folks to question whether this is the beginning of the end for Usenet, but I would argue that Usenet's future is brighter than ever now that AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner have dropped their newsgroup service.

ISPs generally have a poor track record when it comes to providing quality newsgroup services. Usenet receives millions of posts and connections every day, and most ISPs have been unwilling to invest in the resources (servers, storage, engineers, etc.) required to sustain that type of traffic. The result is usually slow ISP news servers that provide an incomplete list of newsgroups, minimal retention, and missing content. While AT&T, Verizon & Time Warner customers are now required to join 3rd party Usenet services to access the newsgroups, they'll ultimately benefit by receiving a better overall product (more groups, more content, faster downloads, etc.)

As 3rd party Usenet services compete for your business, it will drive them to continually improve their offering to maintain a competitive edge. Whereas ISPs have traditionally cut corners with their Usenet service, newsgroups users will now receive unique features... Web access, newsgroup search engines, SSL encryption, etc... as they migrate to dedicated Usenet providers for service. There will be greater innovation within the Usenet industry, attention to quality, and more than likely an emphasis on affordable membership fees, all of which benefits consumers.

Large ISPs such as AT&T have also been indirectly responsible for some of the decay that has taken place within the Usenet community over the past decade. Many of these ISPs have provided Usenet access, but have not taken any responsibility for the administration of their news servers. They've allowed a significant amount of spam and inappropriate content to be posted through their servers, and they had no incentive to correct those problems. In contrast, dedicated Usenet providers will not bite the hand that feeds them, so they typically maintain responsive support staff that addresses abuse concerns, and minimizes the disruptions that inappropriate content creates within the groups. As big corporations extract themselves from Usenet, and general administrative responsibilities return to dedicated newsgroup providers, Usenet will more than likely return to its original roots and intent.

Usenet managed just fine before the AT&T's of the world inserted themselves into the equation, and I imagine that Usenet will do just fine now that some of those corporations have departed. In fact Usenet has an opportunity to thrive in this new environment, and history may show that AT&T's loss will be Usenet's gain.

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