USENET/NNTP server

No. Used to waaaay back in the day, but closed them down. Theres alot of them out there. privately though. Want them to download all those Linux distros right? 

Well that would account for  the  2+ hours  I spent trying to hunt down those settings, for a service we used to enjoy, but just up and  disappeared. No notifications, or information as this is the first I heard of it's dimise.  Well at least the internet  service costs more, while knocking out big chunk of the available content.

I wouldn't say there was no warning. If anything, they warned tons of people who had no idea what newsgroups even are. See here.

"Broadband Reports notes Cox customers are receiving e-mail notifications about the imminent demise of a service that many newer subscribers probably know nothing about:"

And by removing newsgroups I think it gave them more overhead to work on services like enhanced webmail and online backup, which came out shortly after. Besides, the newsgroups they offered weren't very good. Not saying your wrong, just saying I don't see Cox as the bad guy on this one. So few customers used the service that when they did contact people to say it was going to stop, they actually got more calls then if they just stopped without notifying.