How To Watch BBC iPlayer when Outside the UK

The BBC is renowned the world over for producing high-quality content. It has some of the most watched news shows produced worldwide, and it broadcasts popular long-running British shows like Eastenders and Doctor Who. In addition, the BBC often has the rights to desirable sports competitions like Wimbledon, the world cup, five nations, the ashes, and its weekly broadcasts of Premiership football (match of the day).

With so much on offer across its broad list of channels, it is no wonder that people from all over the world want to unblock BBC iPlayer. The good news is that it doesn’t matter whether you are a UK resident on vacation, an expat – or a foreign citizen who wants to watch the BBC – with a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service you can unblock iPlayer.

How it works

A VPN is an online tool that allows people to perform IP address geo-spoofing. By concealing the VPN users home IP address – and letting the subscriber pretend to be in a different country – a VPN lets them bypass geo-restrictions that cause content to be unavailable. With a VPN you can pretend to be anywhere you like; including in the UK to watch the BBC.  A VPN also provides digital privacy by encrypting your web traffic data before it leaves your devices. This stops your ISP, the governments, and copyright holders from being able to ascertain that you unblocked content from another region.

What VPNs are suitable?

Not all VPNs unblock BBC iPlayer, because doing so is quite tricky. The BBC makes great efforts to blocks IP addresses belonging to VPN providers. It does this to appease the copyright holders of the programmes that it broadcasts. The result is that the vast majority of VPN services have already lost the ability to unblock iPlayer.  Managing to get around the BBC’s VPN blocks is time-consuming, and it costs a lot of money, which is why the majority of VPNs have given up. The good news is that some VPN providers have made it part of their core mission to keep providing access to the BBC.

Connection speeds

In addition to needing a specific BBC-friendly VPN service, it is absolutely vital to subscribe to a VPN that provides fast enough connection speeds for streaming, and an unlimited bandwidth allowance.  Many VPNs are slow. This is largely due to an inferior network of VPN servers though it can also be caused by an oversubscribed service (leading to server congestion). The best VPN services for unblocking iPlayer must have many servers in the UK that are able to cope with streaming the BBC in HD. So, always be sure to check that a VPN not only provides access to the BBC – but also provides fast enough connections for streaming shows when you unblock it.

How much will it cost?

Unblocking BBC iPlayer with a VPN is not a costly endeavour. Some of the best services in the world can be purchased for as little as £3 per month, and, VPN providers often have special deals in place throughout the year.  What’s more, the best VPNs all tend to provide money-back guarantees to allow new subscribers to test the service risk-free. That means you are free to shop around and test a few different VPNs before settling on your favourite service.  A VPN is a superb service that provides high levels of privacy when you use the internet both at home and on public WiFi. We believe a VPN is an online tool that should be in everybody’s arsenal. And, don’t forget that a VPN will unblock content from all over the world; not just BBC iplayer.