Access BBC iPlayer or Hulu anywhere, outside the US or UK, with a VPN

Ive been travelling a fair bit recently for work, being stuck in hotels with handicapped internet access is no fun – and the only thing on the hotel TV in English is the news! So, i set about finding an easy way to access streaming media from the UK in Spain or wherever i happened to be, i thought about using a proxy but this has its limitations and didnt work too reliably.

The answer, quite simply, was to use a VPN – by using a VPN server located in the UK, i could appear to be in the UK even if i wasnt. This gave me access to BBC iPlayer outside the UK, perfect! I came across a company called StreamVia that had a package with multiple VPN servers, including US and German as well as UK, for a small monthly fee. This meant not only could i access BBC iPlayer i could also keep up to date with South Park on Hulu. Whilst i could have set something similar up myself, for pure simplicity it made sense to use something already working ;)

They provide OpenVPN and PPTP connectivity options, so i can connect my MacBook or work issues Linux Laptop with OpenVPN – or, this is the best bit – also connect my iPhone or iPad using the native PPTP client in iOS. All included in one package, some VPN hosts i looked at only provided you with one or the other or wanted to charge more for extra options.

Check them out @ http://www.streamvia.com – i also found a discount voucher on their twitter feed, so be sure to have a look before ordering!