> most of them are probably the "bandwidth hogs" that ISPs hate
No, these are the bandwidth hogs that ISPs love. When they're downloading with NNTP from an ISP's server, they're not incurring a single byte of bandwidth beyond the ISP's perimeter.
It depends whether the ISP's bottleneck is the last mile or the border. Also, Time Warner outsourced their Usenet service a few years ago so all the traffic goes over the Internet to Virginia.
No, these are the bandwidth hogs that ISPs love. When they're downloading with NNTP from an ISP's server, they're not incurring a single byte of bandwidth beyond the ISP's perimeter.