I'm glad I don't have problems with Verizon very often. Suddenly, around last Thursday I couldn't get to news.verizon.net anymore. No changes to my configuration or firewalls. I can ping the server and even trace a route to it. But if I try to connect SYN is sent, but the server never replies. I get variously "Connection failed" or "Network host unreachable".

It turns out Verizon staff monitor a forum on dslreports, so I posted there and got the following reply: 


beowulf9

[DSL-OTHER] Can Ping/Tracert, not connect to news.verizon.net



Thank-you for your inquiry on the Verizon Broadband Report Forums. We are very excited about being able to offer our valued Verizon Customers support via this Forum and look forward to your feedback.



We will be happy to help you with your connection issues to news.verizon.net However the support we provide for newsgroups is minimal. Also, we do not support the Mozilla Thunderbird program. We will be happy to review your settings in Outlook Express.

To fully address your particular issue we will need to open a ticket on your account to further investigate this issue. To accomplish this we need you to initiate a real time chat session with us using Answer Web (»supportcenter.verizon.net/euserv···ncidents)



If you do not use IE or have any problems with this link: Please go to »dslstart.verizon.net and click on the Contact US link in blue at the very bottom of our homepage. This will open another page and you will see a section that says " Chat Online with a Support Rep".



AnswerWeb will allow you to open a chat with us between the hours of 8 AM - 7 PM ET, Monday through Friday. This request can be initiated from any computer connected to the Internet, and does not require that you be at home, although should troubleshooting be required, the agent may need you to reinitiate the session from your home PC.



When using AnswerWeb please be sure to provide the following information:



Broadband Reports Forum UserID

Broadband Reports Forum Thread Name

AnswerWeb authorization code: XXXXX



Thank-you for contacting Verizon.

I notice Verizon has no problem taking my money before providing me access to their news server. They also only allow me to access the news server from one of their own IP addresses (in addition to having to authenticate using my VZ username and password). But they don't support newsgroups. They also don't support Mozilla Thunderbird. As if there is anything more to setting up any Windows news reader beyond filling out 4 textboxes on a form.

Anyway, so I decide to play ball since I want to get the problem fixed and there's no point to debate why I have to jump through just these hoops. Anyway, I load iexplore.exe since the chat link doesn't work in Firefox and get a Java stack dump. WTF?

DSLReports came through with what seems like a sound diagnosis. Unfortunately, I'm going to be left waiting around for probably another week at least before Verizon finally pulls their thumb out of their ass and my newsgroup access will suddenly start working again...