With the latest coronavirus outbreak, there are thousands of Brits stuck overseas unable to get a flight home as governments close their borders and airlines cancel flights to avoid the risk of COVID-19 spreading. For those from the UK that are stuck overseas but have a TV license at home, the BBC iPlayer is the perfect solution to get their fill of British TV. 

iPlayer can be downloaded on to a mobile device, laptop, or streamed directly from a web browser. However, the first issues many Uk citizens have run into is that the iPlayer is blocked. For some reason, the staff at BBC have not thought about the fact that those unfortunate brits that are stuck overseas and taken action by temporarily lifting the geo-blocks on their iPlayer software. 

If you are overseas and you are wondering how you can access the BBC iPlayer’s content, then check out the BBC iPlayer VPN here. You will be able to sign up to a VPN and in some cases find free VPNs that can be used to connect to servers in the UK. 

Why do Brits need a VPN to connect to iPlayer from overseas?

The iPlayer has something called a geo-block applied to it. That means anyone trying to access the iPlayer content from outside of the UK will be blocked from the stream the content. The best you can do is log in and browse the content but you will not be able to stream it if your computer is on a router that is registered overseas. 

There are only a handful of ways around this conundrum. 

Stream from a computer: One is to work out a way to access a computer back in the UK. You can then log on and stream movies via that computer.  

Use a proxy IP address: You can rent or buy proxy IP addresses in the UK. You enter the proxy IP address into your browser setting to tell you computer to connect to the internet via the UK IP address. This can be tiresome if the proxy stops working and you only have the one option.

Using a VPN service: Using a VPN service is easy. Just download the VPN software, sign up, log in, and select a server in the UK. The software will connect to the server and you will not be surfing the internet from a computer in the UK.

All three methods mentioned here will mean that the iPlayer will think that it is streaming its content to a computer in the UK and therefore you will bypass the geo-block restriction. Check out this website to find out more information about how you can stream the BBC iPlayer abroad. You will be able to find high-speed VPN services that host servers that are specifically used to access and watch BBC iPlayer outside the UK.