Evening

Lets try this posting in the correct room mallarky

Right I got a program for downloading DATA from newsgroups (SuperNZB) and set it up with the default settings, just input my news server address username password etc, and the default port or 119

Now for the first few weeks this been working like a dream , nice fast downloading.
But then one day literaly working one day and the next speeds dropped from 3000KBPS to like 300KBPS

Emailed my news server to see if they had any problems and they said no, and asked for my isp addy which i supplied and they run a traceroute and "did not see any network congestions"
They also suggested I used the european address as nearer to me, which I did with no differencies

Next they suggested I used ports 23, 1818 or 8080
all which work as port 119 DID
I am now running all four ports and seen speeds up to a peak of 6000KBPS, BUT that has been achieved mainly on the other ports cause you can see the progress bars for each.
Also sometimes the 119 port comes up as stalled.

I cant figure using the same program with no changes as far as i know to my pc that one port suddenly stops working

Have spoken to my ISP and they are saying they dont restrict ANY ports.

But do say they "manage traffic" at peak times. (what do they do to "manage traffic ?)

But this isnt happening just at peak times either tho, cos I try not to download in peak times after being hit by a F U P once before, which just caused major headaches getting it lifted and getting my speeds back up to where they should be.

My ISP is Tiscali by the way
Was on the phone to some woman in INdia for half an hour trying to find anything out when she finally admits she doesnt understand what a port 119 is its not on her sheet and could I tell her .

Which actually I couldnt cos I aint sure exactly lol, but got the idea behind it at least, so also what exactly is a port just an outlet/inlet to from the net, which a program can choose to use, so in that case just how many ports can a connection have, or a pc.

Steve