For today, there are more than 100 Usenet access providers out there. All providers have pretty websites, various premium packages and make affiliation for offered retention, servers, infrastructure etc. But there is one main difference between all them - the majority are Usenet resellers for big server farms and only some are Back-End providers.

Let’s start our article with Back-End providers. While we talk about this type of access providers, we talk about companies that manage the infrastructure of Usenet. They own huge data centers with servers to provide access to Usenet network. Without them, downloading from Usenet would not be possible, because you need a server to establish a connection with. Downloading of files will be processed through your PC and this connected server. Here are the most important Back-End providers sorted into groups:

   - World providers: Giganews, UNS Holding, Astraweb, ReadNews

   - Dutch providers: Xentech, XSNews, EuroAccess, Cambrium Usenet Services, CheapNews and XS4All

   - German providers: Elbracht

   - US providers: Altopia

The list contains some popular services, which you surely ever used for Usenet access. All these big companies have website where you can pay for premium account for private use. Beside private users, back-end providers sell their Usenet traffic to smaller companies - we call them resellers. All resellers are servives registered all over the world under separate companies as back-ends. They run own websites, make own prices, package features etc. and try to sell their service. Let’s take a look at which resellers every back-end provider sells traffic to.

Giganews is a giant on the Usenet market and doesn’t provide direct reselling, but they have some sister companies that use the same servers to sell unlimited accounts: Usenet.net, PowerUsenet and Rhinonewsgroups. There were some cases, where Giganews bought other Usenet providers. The best example is SuperNews - the provider still exists under the same name.

Astraweb is the only one back-end provider that concentrates only on private users. They do not own any sister companies, never bought other companies or have any strong reselling services that should be mentioned here.

UNS Holding is the big company that makes reselling to many providers and owns many sister companies. To the UNS Holding belong sister companies Easynews, Eweka, Newshosting and UsenetServer. The list of resellers, that use the server farms of UNS Holding, is rather long, so here are some names: BinTube, Altbinaries.com, Firstload, FlashNewsgroups, iLoad, Megabitz, Newsdemon, Newsgroupdirect, Newsleecher, Newsrazor, Sonic-News, Usenet.nl and much more. As you can see, UNS Holding has a very powerful network to sell Usenet access to the private customers and to the related businesses.

The company ReadNews has no sister companies, but some resellers: AnonyNews, BitUsenet, BlockNews, FastUsenet, Newsreader, Ngroups.net, FrugalUsenet, Usenetnow and some others.

XSNews is popular dutch Usenet provider with big database of active customers. The company sells all accounts under the company name XSNews, but offers reselling from the name XennaNews. Some of their resellers are: Aeton, 4UX, Astinews, Gebruikhet, PowerNews, Newsgrabber, SimplyUsenet, UsenetBucket, UsenetXL, Usenext, GetNZB and some others.

Euroaccess is another one dutch Usenet access provider with resellers like Extremeusenet, 123Usenet, PureUsenet, SunnyUsenet, XLNed and some more.

Combrium Usneet Services or called Tweaknews is rather small company that has only three resellers: Nextgennews, usenet4U and XSUsenet. 

We will not list every single company and reseller here, cause the list can be long. Let’s come to the main point why we started this discussion. 

Should I buy at Back-End Provider or go to their Reseller?  

This is very interesting question. Fact is, that all resellers are rather small companies that are forced to pay to their back-end partner for each MB their users download. In other words, they are forced to run a statistic of how much a user downloads. They all advertise with unlimited traffic, but it’s the biggest question if the promised traffic is really unlimited!? 

I think it’s rather logical, that back-end provider is able to provide faster and better Usenet access as own reseller. This is true! I used many providers and never got such amazing download speed with 50 connections and 100% completion as on Giganews. If we go through their resellers, then we will see that the maximum amount of connections we can get is 20 - the prices are almost the same. It’s also logical that back-end provider will never allow a reseller to be better or even to offer the same quality for the same price - they would keep their advantages on the market for themselves. 

Some resellers are forced to use not user-friendly advertising methods to get customers. I mean advertising on movie streaming sites or file download sites where nice landing pages will be shown and free online download (or stream) promised. The user signs up for free trial account and sees that advertised files are not really available for direct download - first, they need to find them. And in 7 to 14 days a customer sees the charge of 100 USD on his credit card statement. Such methods were used by Usenet.NL, Usenext and Firstload on many affiliate websites.

So my personal answer to the question above is that you will get more quality, if you are a customer of a back-end provider and not of a reseller.

So why should I ever order at resellers?

There are surely some advantages you can await by ordering on reseller's side, like reduced prices to make users try the service or good support. But let’s think about this question from a point of view, if a reseller can give techlogical advantages to the user!?.

Some months ago, I’ve had a contact with GetNZB.com Usenet access service and they explained me how they work: they are reseller for several companies, what means that they buy Usenet traffic on Xentech, Xennanews, Giganews and Highwinds. Their system is able to connect with several server farms at the same time and, if the user requests a download, the system checks on all back-ends if the file is available. This is really a big advantage of a reseller! Many files will be deleted from Usenet because of DMCA and it takes some time till they will be uploaded again. With such a system like GetNZB, user is able to get even more as 100% competion. I think many resellers work in this way.

So the answer is Yes. Ask the reseller, which back-end providers they use, and then make your decision.