Sonic News' website is hopelessly out of date - They probably just haven't gotten around to taking it down or more likely it hasn't expired yet.  As such, we are recommending -  you check out our list of the Best Usenet Providers instead.

Deals / Special Offer / Discounted Pricing

There are no special deals or discounted pricing offered by Sonic-News.

Free Trial

Sonic-News does not offer any free trial.

Plan / Price Offerings

They offer only metered option, in other words, there is no unlimited bandwidth option available. The pricing is as follows:

• 500 MB/day: $3.99
• 1200 MB/day: $7.50
• 3000 MB/day: $15.00
• 8000 MB/day: $29.00

Connection Speeds / Server Locations

We test  the speed of Sonic-News, but according to other reviews, it was standard.

There are number of servers available, located both in North America and Europe. Each server has its own specifications so let’s examine what these are:

• news.sonic-news.com (Chicago): the speed cap depends on the user’s subscription level, 12 connections are available, the server is using NNTP ports 119 or 80 and SSL ports 563 or 443
• alt.sonic-news.com (Amsterdam): unused credits accumulate, there is a daily download allowance, there is no speed cap, 12 connections are available as well, the server is using NNTP ports 119, 23, 80, 443, and 8080 and SSL port 563
• east.sonic-news.com (Atlanta) and euro.sonic-news.com (Amsterdam): unused credits accumulate, there is a daily download allowance, article numbering is synchronized with each other, 20 connections are available, there is no speed cap, the server is using NNTP ports 119 or 443, SSL is not available
• post.sonic-news.com (Chicago): this is their own unlogged, anonymous, posting-only server, it requires generating a unique login (which is not associated with the user’s primary account or any personal information), NNTP port is 119 and SSL ports are 563 or 443

Technical Notes

Privacy:

They were committed to never collect or retain IP addresses, groups accessed, articles downloaded, search requests or any other personal information, except the information that is essential for their services to operate regularly.

Newsgroups

Currently, 55.000 groups are available and the groups themselves are automatically added when they reach a certain amount of posting activity. The name of the group is responsibility of the user who created the group and the activity that occurs within certain group is responsibility on the group’s participants. The complete list of available newsgroups is provided through a group search option.

Quality of Service

Binary retention is up to 120 days for NZB files. Text retention is up to 90 days. The completion rate is unknown.

Customer Service

Customer service support via email only.

Conclusion

The retention rates are low and the prices are not competitive, we recommend you check out our list of the Best Usenet Providers.