Giganews, the largest gateway to Usenet, or the newsgroups, has reported "unprecedented growth" in the last year. The newsgroups are one of the oldest mediums of the Internet, with an existence dating back to the late 1970s. Over time, the newsgroups have evolved from a bulletin board type messaging system to one of the premier avenues for file-sharing. Users of this network will often times argue of its overwhelming supremacy over rival BitTorrent.

With lawsuits, bandwidth throttling and politicking consuming the P2P community, the newsgroups are becoming a more attractive source of information. Because of the defined roles in the newsgroup community and secure transmissions, lawsuits against individuals are virtually non-existent. Unlike P2P, the end user is not required nor encouraged to upload material. Instead, dedicated users with the know-how and experience are responsible for providing content. And according to Giganews, those individuals and those posting messages are taking the newsgroups by storm.

In a release posted today, Giganews is reporting that since the upgrade to 240 days, the already impressive growth initiated in January has accelerated.

"During September 2008, Giganews completed storage upgrades which increased retention levels to 240 days," Giganews reports. "Shortly thereafter, Giganews' upload traffic jumped to a sustained level averaging well over 400 megabits per second, representing more than 4.3 terabytes of new user generated content and discussions per day. Giganews has seen steady upload growth throughout the decade, but the pace following the recent storage upgrade exceeded all expectations."

The graph below shows Giganew's growth through the decade - note the growth in 2008.



The explosive growth means that users might not experience the full 240 day retention they've growth accustomed to, however, Giganews is apparently on the case. Further upgrades are underway, and retention extending "well beyond" 240 days should be ready by 2009. An exact date isn’t provided, however, Giganews’ reputation for quick upgrades and repair shouldn’t have users waiting much past January.

The newsgroups have been under attack in recent months, led by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. His efforts have forced a number of ISPs, such as Comcast, Verizon, and RoadRunner, to eliminate or significantly curtail access to the binary newsgroups. This action, it seems, has not dampened interest in the newsgroups.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
Newsgroups/Usenet :: Other

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