Whenever there’s a major sports event happening, the demand is bigger than what’s offered, and typically this is due to a lack of coverage. This is certainly the case with the Rio Paralympics 2016 where some countries will have no access to it whatsoever, since they have low or no broadcast coverage at all. Some channels such as NBC, USOC and Channel 4 for example will assure a few hours of coverage, but what if you live neither in the U.S. nor in the UK? You’ll probably look online right? What if you’re unable to access streams due to your location? In this article we will give you a few tricks that will help you break all barriers the internet has built.
What to Do?
There is a very simple trick that comes into play. All you need is a Virtual Private Network(VPN). What these do is essentially hide your IP address as well as your online traffic from governments, websites and even your internet provider through secure servers spread worldwide. You will be pretty much invisible to the internet’s eyes, while you’re roaming the web using a foreign IP address.
How Does This Work?
Let’s consider PureVPN for example, a quality VPN service provider. You’ll need to download their desktop client or app and then – this is how the magic happens – it allows you to choose one of their more than 500 servers that will disguise your IP address with a different one. Because of this the website you want to visit is no longer geo-blocked since you moved your location with a few simple clicks. In PureVPN’s case their servers are spread over 141 countriesand, after you choose one of them, you’ll be given one of over 80,000 IP addresses.
In the case of the Paralympics in Rio you could use PureVPN to tunnel your internet connection through a VPN server based in the U.S., so you can easily access the online streams of the Paralympics through the NBC’s streaming website. The same goes for accessing Channel 4, the official broadcaster of the Paralympics in the UK. Set your PureVPN client to connect to a server in the UK, and you’ll be watching the Paralympics live on Channel 4 before you know it.
What devices are capable of this?
You can use the power of a VPN on pretty much every device that has a screen. You’re able to access those tricky streaming websites on any device other than your computer since most of these VPN providers allow cross-platform usage. From smartphones to tablets, from smart TVs to even your gaming console – if it has a screen it is most likely to be supported. In the particular case of PureVPN you can connect up to 5 devices simultaneously.
Is it safe? and what about my internet speed?
In the majority of cases you don’t have to worry about any of that. Pretty much all VPN providers protect your information with military-grade encryption. The impact on your internet speed depends on factors such as the proximity of the server you’re connecting to, or how many people are connected to the same VPN server. Although it is true that some servers are faster than others, you will most certainly not watch a bumpy five-minute-delay live broadcast. Also, PureVPN holds no bandwidth limits whatsoever so you’ll never “run out of internet”.
Daniel C.
Sander D.
