I today have broadband over cable-tv from Canal Digital, a company wholly-owned by Telenor, the successor to Norway’s old telecom monopoly. Now Telenor foolishly has decided to terminate its Usenet news service. Not only did they decide to do that, they neglected to send out any information about it, it wasn’t until I read about it in an article in an on-line news magazine that I learned about it. Really bad of them.

The solution would of course be to switch operators, the only problem is that if I were to do that I would have to switch to ADSL, which means that I would have to get a land-line (with Telenor) or pay a “penalty fee” (to Telenor) for not having one. So, no matter what I do I cannot avoid dealing with Telenor.

It is bad that a company with the kind of market-dominating position of Telenor unilaterally can decide to do things like this. I have signed a petition, written a complaint to Forbrukerrådet and written to Canal Digital demanding that they either give me access to an alternative Usenet News service, or lower their monthly fee.

I guess I’ll have to wait and see if this makes any difference. Meanwhile I am trying to find alternative ways of accessing Usenet (and, no, Google groups is not an alternative).