There are currently about 100 Usenet access providers. They can be divided into two categories: Back-end Usenet Provider (aka Tier1 Usenet Provider) and Usenet Resellers
Back-end Usenet Provider - tier 1 provider : The market is essentially controlled by four major companies : Giganews - HighWinds - Astraweb - Readnews , a few Dutch Providers (Tier 1 Usenet Provider operating her own server farm from Amsterdam): Xentech- XSNews - Euroaccess - Cambrium Usenet Services - XS4all and One German Provider: Elbracht
These companies are Top Tier1 Providers / Back-end Providers. They have their own servers, control their network themselves and sell on part of their network to resellers. They are independent and not a reseller. Even ISPs use these four companies to provide their news.yourisp.com
- Giganews provides several ISPs with Usenet access. They don’t resell to third parties but they do own several sister services like SuperNews and PowerUsenet. Giganews is is the oldest of the four, offering Usenet access since 1998
- Highwinds supply access to many Usenet resellers. With very attractive reale rates, they almost have a monopoly on the market (ISPs and Usenet service). Highwinds does not offer Usenet access for individuals. But they do own three Top Tier Providers: UsenetServer - Newshosting and Easynews (which uses a special infrastructure)
- Readnews: A new European service. Very dynamic - and in direct competition with HighWinds. No sister services nor individual access
- Astraweb mainly sells on to individuals and not to third party services.
- News-Service: !! NEWS !! : News Service forced to close after losing legal battle against group BREIN !!!
- XSNews: They are well known in Dutch as a solid Tier 1 Usenet Provider .
- Euroaccess: Dutch based provider
- Cambrium Usenet Services: Dutch based provider
- Xentech: Dutch based provider
- XS4all: Dutch based provider
- Elbracht: German company selling Usenet access
Usenet Resellers : A reseller runs their own usenet service without having dedicated servers. They buy gigabytes from a Back-end Usenet Provider and sell it on to customers.
These Usenet Resellers appeared for several reasons:
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A huge increase in traffic - A newsserver has to process an enormous amount of data every second.
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An influx of new users since 2005-07
These factors forced some newsgroup providers to buy Feed (Suck feed to fix their poor completion rates or Full Feed) because they couldn’t keep up with Usenet’s rapid growth. Others, like Ngroups.net, quickly realized (on 2003) the financial incentive in not running their own servers. They could then concentrate on the commercial side of newsgroups and economize on the organization of newsgroup servers.
It worth adding that:
- Some are "real" sister companies like Powerusenet with Giganews. Others are "real" resellers.
- Usenet resellers are not necessarily low-cost, low-quality. The best example is Newsdemon: good price and excellent support.
- Some Usenet resellers depend on two or more back end providers according to fluctuation in price and retention offers.
| GIGANEWS | Sister companies of Giganews Giganews has sister companies that uses the same servers to resell unlimited downloads. You've got same reliabilty and support levels of Giganews |
Owned by Giganews Recently Giganews bought Supernews corporate users but Supernews still use their own infrastructure. |
Giganews for Internet Providers Some Internet providers have decided to stop spending money on Usenet and decide to outsource their Usenet to save costs |
| Usenet.NET Powerusenet Rhinonewsgroups |
Supernews | EARTHLINK INSIGHT SPEAKEASY NETSPACE ADAM NEXICOM BT ECLIPSE PLUS.NET EDPNET |
| READNEWS | Readnews resellers No sister services nor individual access |
| AnonyNews Blocknews FastUsenet FrugalUsenet NewsServers Ngroups.net Stealthnews Usenet-News Usenetnow Usenet.se |
| ASTRAWEB | Astraweb for Internet Providers
Some Internet providers have decided to stop spending money on Usenet and decide to outsource their Usenet to save costs |
| ESCAPENET INTERNODE |
| EUROACCESS | Euroaccess resellers |
| BitNews Extremeusenet SunnyUsenet TransXS UsenetByOrder Usenet.Pro XLned |
| CAMBRIUM USENET SERVICES | Cambrium Usenet Services resellers
|
| CheapNews TweakNews.Nl Usenet4U |
| XENTECH | Xentech resellers
|
| BudgetNews HitNews Xennews |
| XS4ALL | XS4All resellers
|
| Newszilla (IPV6) |
| ELBRACHT | Elbracht resellers |
| Premiumnews Prepaid-usenet United-newsserver |