"Geoff Hicks" wrote
What you doing in Pakistan? I'm just back from a 5 month stint in India
so I
know what you mean as outside major cities my connection was around 10k.

Thanks for the extra info.

I am in Pakistan in connection with some oil exploration in the
western part of the country - quite near the Afgan border, so there
are a few security issues!

You Ozzies have no fear. Just spent 9 months in your fine country and
travelled from West to East and South to North. Had a ball ;-)

I will be here for a few more days then back home (Australia) where I
will try out your suggestions.

Another question. Are you posting via Google Groups (which I am)? If
so, perhaps you can tell me how come I can post a new message to any
group but can only reply to messages in some groups? Any idea?

Nope, sorry I always use my regular German free News server but as a backup
I also have my regular ISP and an old but still functional Compuserve
account as backups (Nice of them isn't it).
You can get free [text only] newsgroup access here ...
http://news.cis.dfn.de/
Just click News.Individual.Net and it'll take you to the registration page.
Cheers