Alan wrote:
Don't forget guys - AOL is just a net pipline like
anyone else.

No, AOL is not a net pipeline at all. AOL was actually a messaging service
that was independant of the net, and with the huge publicity about the internet
in the early nineties, they gatewayed themselves (very badly) to Usenet and
then to the web services. AOL in fact does not provide complete connectivity
at all, but only a very simplified set of ports are available and many of those
are proxied in some way.

AOL is not really intended as a regular ISP, although over the years they have
done more and more thing to it to make it function as one.

My guess is that not enough people use Usenet and it costs them money to run,
so they are eliminating the gateway. Perhaps they should never have installed
it in the first place.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."