Question: When will the Giganews service start?

Answer: The service will start on the 19th of November, 2003.

Question: What will happen to the Supernews (corp.supernews.com/news.karoo.co.uk) service?

Answer: The service will close on the 9th of December, 2003.

Question: What will happen to the Planet Online (news.theplanet.net/nntp.karoo.co.uk) service?

Answer: The service will close in the early months of 2004.

Question: Will I connect directly to the Giganews service?

Answer: No, KC will run their own news server for the Karoo users, and it will just be powered by Giganews; i.e. the Karoo news server will download/upload from/to the Giganews news server, and all of the Karoo users will download/upload from/to the Karoo news server. This has the advantage of reducing network traffic for KC, as once the Karoo news server has downloaded (cached) a file for one user, it will be stored ready for any subsequent users; i.e. there will be no need for it to re-download the same file.

Question: How will I access the Giganews service?

Answer: Access to the Giganews service will be via usenet.karoo.co.uk.

Question: When I change my settings to use the Giganews service, do I need to do anything else?

Answer: Yes, some news clients will get confused when you change your settings to use a different news server, hence after changing your settings, you should really refresh the newsgroups list, and then unsubscribe and re-subscribe to any newsgroups that you read. This should force your news client to reset all of your newsgroups, and then everything should work perfectly.

Question: What will be the major benefits of the Giganews service?

Answer: The major benefits will include: longer retention times, greater choice of newsgroups, and increased completion rates.

Question: How many simultaneous connections will I be able to have to the Giganews service?

Answer: There will be a maximum of two simultaneous connections per user to the Giganews service.

Question: Will there be a monthly download/upload limit on the Giganews service?

Answer: There will be no download/upload limit on the Giganews service.

Question: How fast will I be able to download from the Giganews service?

Answer: There will be a speed restriction on each connection to the news server that prevents the connection from achieving above 192kbit/sec. This is done for financial reasons. Unfortunately, this speed restriction affects both cached and un-cached data. The KUG hope that at some point in the near future the speed restriction can be relaxed for the un-cached data, and removed for the cached data. However, there are some complex technical issues to resolve before this can be achieved.

Question: How long will it take for my posts to appear on a newsgroup?

Answer: The Giganews news server will refresh each newsgroup every five minutes, and the Karoo news server will also refresh each newsgroup every five minutes, so in total, a post will reach any given newsgroup somewhere between a few seconds and ten minutes after posting, thus giving an average of about five minutes. However, Giganews are looking at reducing this time.

Question: How will I get a newsgroup added to the Giganews service?

Answer: Please Contact Us with the name and a brief description of the newsgroup.

Question: What will happen to the karoo.* hierarchy of newsgroups?

Answer: The karoo.* hierarchy of newsgroups will remain, and depending on your feedback more may be created.

Question: Will the karoo.* hierarchy of newsgroups be available to everyone?

Answer: The karoo.* hierarchy of newsgroups will be 'closed newsgroups'; i.e. only visible to Karoo users.

Question: Will the Karoo.* hierarchy of newsgroups have their own charter?

Answer: Yes. Please see the Karoo Newsgroups Charter.