To the best of my knowledge this system generally doesn’t answer to ICMP echo requests.
Could you elaborate which news are required? To the best of my knowledge such problems are usually originating from network issues on user side (firewall, routing, proxy systems blocking the use of rsync, …).
Only some limitations for “power users” (means if too much connections are done at the same time) seems to be in place which are announced via Important: IP and bandwith limitations on Community Feed