Has the BBC found a way of blocking 4G users abroad

DavidJ

DavidJ

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 Jun 2001
Messages
5,984
Location
home in Brum. S37 sold, was in Med Spain.
Visit site
On the boat in Spain and have always been able to get the BBC by using my EE 4G allowance. I hotspot my phone and watch on an iPad. (Thanks Hurricane for this tip in the past)
But now I get “ Sorry, the content can only be played within the UK”
I can get Netflix, NowTV, My5, so its not EE restricting my streaming and strangely can get the BBC using my wife’s EE 4G allowance and hotspotting her phone.
I’m worried that the BBC have found a way of locating me and will now cut off my wife’s “connection” before the rugby on Saturday.
I could go back to using a VPN I suppose, but from the above have the BBC found a way?
 
DavidJ said:
On the boat in Spain and have always been able to get the BBC by using my EE 4G allowance. I hotspot my phone and watch on an iPad. (Thanks Hurricane for this tip in the past)
But now I get “ Sorry, the content can only be played within the UK”
I can get Netflix, NowTV, My5, so its not EE restricting my streaming and strangely can get the BBC using my wife’s EE 4G allowance and hotspotting her phone.
I’m worried that the BBC have found a way of locating me and will now cut off my wife’s “connection” before the rugby on Saturday.
I could go back to using a VPN I suppose, but from the above have the BBC found a way?
Click to expand...

Haven’t watched anything BBC since I refused to pay my TV license. Not missed anything
 
DavidJ said:
On the boat in Spain and have always been able to get the BBC by using my EE 4G allowance. I hotspot my phone and watch on an iPad. (Thanks Hurricane for this tip in the past)
But now I get “ Sorry, the content can only be played within the UK”
I can get Netflix, NowTV, My5, so its not EE restricting my streaming and strangely can get the BBC using my wife’s EE 4G allowance and hotspotting her phone.
I’m worried that the BBC have found a way of locating me and will now cut off my wife’s “connection” before the rugby on Saturday.
I could go back to using a VPN I suppose, but from the above have the BBC found a way?
Click to expand...

The rugby will be on ITV - take a look at the TV Player.
 
DavidJ said:
On the boat in Spain and have always been able to get the BBC by using my EE 4G allowance. I hotspot my phone and watch on an iPad. (Thanks Hurricane for this tip in the past)
But now I get “ Sorry, the content can only be played within the UK”
I can get Netflix, NowTV, My5, so its not EE restricting my streaming and strangely can get the BBC using my wife’s EE 4G allowance and hotspotting her phone.
I’m worried that the BBC have found a way of locating me and will now cut off my wife’s “connection” before the rugby on Saturday.
I could go back to using a VPN I suppose, but from the above have the BBC found a way?
Click to expand...

Presumably for some reason your wife's phone still thinks its in the UK so the BBC aren't blocking it yet. I've just tried the BBC website and it just says "This content isn't available in your location" (Spain) which is what it always does, for me at least.

You are just going to have to brave a British bar to watch it.
 
This is bad news David.
Maybe try rebooting your phone - get to remake the connection.

I don't think this is BBC/ITV finding a way of blocking - per se
More an IP address issue.

For those who have posted above I need to explain the loophole that we have all been using.
In the early days of mobile data when roaming abroad, the phone operators just connected to the local operators.
This resulted in your phone obtaining a local IP address.
UK TV broadcasters simply check the IP address and reject if it isn't a UK address - simple.
But since 3 years ago, when roaming, UK mobile phone operators now route through an International Gateway back to their own servers in the UK and your connection exits the mobile system onto the UK internet thus obtaining a UK IP address.
So to explain David's system - he simply bought a UK mobile phone connection from a UK operator and whenever he connects ANYWHERE, his phone obtains a UK IP address.
This has worked over the last 3 years for ALL UK mobile phone operators.
This is great because wherever you travel your phone will play UK content.

It will be a shame if this has changed.

David I'm going out in about 3 weeks I will report in it is still working in our part of Spain.
 
I've had a quick Google round and I can't find any reasons why you shouldn't still get a UK IP address whilst in Spain.
Did restarting the phone work?
I found one forum that recommends switching to Airplane mode and back again - apparently that forces a new connection.
In all cases, they give the reason why the phone operators allow this is so that they can control your usage etc.
I'm a bit more cynical though.
Mobile phones are fast becoming security devices (Banks etc doing extra stage verification etc) so I think the the phone operators are being put under legal constraints to manage their subscribers.
When you buy a phone contract these days you need proof of who you are.
Actually, I think this is a good thing - however open to abuse, your mobile phone provides another piece of security information about you.
So, in controlling the IP addresses, the mobile phone operators have more information to provide their local security services if they were ever asked what your phone was doing.

If it isn't IP address that is causing this problem, there are other things that the broadcasters can do.
For example Channel 4 are really awkward.
They check lots of things - at one time, they checked the timezone of your device.
Another trick that Channel 4 do is they only allow the connected screen to operate so plugging in a TV to your iPhone won't work.
I have never heard them blocking a tethered device though.

Hey Ho
 
Last edited:
Hurricane said:
I've had a quick Google round and I can't find any reasons why you shouldn't still get a UK IP address whilst in Spain.
Did restarting the phone work?
Click to expand...

Just rebooted the phone and guess what....
All is ok with the BBC and ITV hub as well.
Thanks for the advice (which I should have tried to be honest!)

For the first time I brought my old Apple TV box out and joined it to the phone Hotspot and it worked!! . Happily watched Now TV on a proper TV.
I believe the new Apple TV’s can get iPlayer .....maybe worth the investment now the above is cleared up.
I’ve tried “Screen Mirroring” but it’s too jerky.
 
Last edited:
DavidJ said:
Just rebooted the phone and guess what....
All is ok with the BBC and ITV hub as well.
Thanks for the advice (which I should have tried to be honest!)

For the first time I brought my old Apple TV box out and joined it to the phone Hotspot and it worked!! . Happily watched Now TV on a proper TV.
I believe the new Apple TV’s can get iPlayer .....maybe worth the investment now the above is cleared up.
I’ve tried “Screen Mirroring” but it’s too jerky.
Click to expand...

I would never buy an Apple TV but I am looking for a slick BBC iPlayer interface line the BBC iPlayer apps.
Not that critical because I have a new smart TV which should do that kind of thing.

At the moment, I am using a Raspberry Pi running Kodi to feed into my TVs on the boat.
The good thing about the iPlayer add on for Kodi is that you can set the stream rate hence bandwidth that Kodi uses.
That way, I can keep my data usage controllable - in fact there isn't a huge difference in quality if you pick a stream rate faster than the slowest.
The bad thing with Kodi is that ITV, Channel 4 and 5 are impossible.

But if you find a nice BBC iPlayer box that I can plug into an HDMI port and connect to the ship's LAN, I would be interested.

My satellite domes still work for Sky News etc so that helps to keep my data usage down.
I am just about getting away with 50Gb per month in the summer when I'm out there all the time.
 
At 50 GB a month I am going to take your advice on setup! My kids can do that in a weekend. We have a 80GB rolling contract which is quite cheap. Where its not cheap is when we start tacking on 10GB increments to make it to the next rollover.
 
Someone I know has a family member studying in Italy and has found a perfect solution to UK TV that's easy to set up and affordable.

In summary:

Decent WiFi or tethering
Amazon Firestick (must be revised version or 4k version to work with VPN)
Various Firestick TV apps (BBC etc)
NordVPN subscription
NordVPN Firestick App
NordVPN dedicated UK IP Address


In Detail:
This person, who shall remain nameless, bought an Amazon Firestick which plugs straight into an HDMI port on a TV. You can get one delivered tomorrow to the local Amazon drop off point from amazon.co.uk. amazon.es, amazon.it, amazon.fr etc using your UK Amazon Prime Account.

Firestick has its own "app store". BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Channel 5, Netflix, Amazon Prime video are all available. The TV Player app brings it all together in a Sky like program guide. There's a new Apple TV app as well. Naughty people apparantly download the Kodi app and watch other people's awful and illegal smartphone recordings of the latest Hollywood films.

Most of the TV apps won't work abroad though - the BBC and others look for a connection from a UK internet IP address. So, the solution is to create a Virtual Private Network (that's a "pipe" through the internet back to a server in the UK and then out to the outside world so that the TV companies see a UK IP internet address rather than a foreign one)

After much trial and error with other VPN providers, my friend subscribed to NordVPN.com (about £6 per month) then downloaded and setup the NordVPN app on the Firestick (which is very straightforward). My friend just clicks the "connect to UK" button in Nordvpn's app and then starts up the required TV app.

So, £39 for a firestick and £12 per month for uninterrupted UK TV.

There are a few complications.

1. The BBC and others play the equivalent of "whack a mole" with the VPN providers' UK servers. Many hundreds of users connecting to the BBC from the same IP address must look suspicious plus I imagine they themselves simply subscribe to the leading VPN providers and just "whack" a new server when it appears in the VPN server list. So, my friend says you either have to be prepared to try a few servers in NordVPN's list OR subscribe for a further £6 per month to your own Private VPN. My friend has done this and the solution has worked like a charm with any tweaking or messing about.

2. Firestick needs a USB power supply and many TVs have an unused USB socket. When setting up, the Firestick sometimes grumbles that it needs more power and asks for the supplied adaptor but my friend ignores this - only Apple TV app's setup insisted.

Hope this helps!

Mike
 
Mikehp0 said:
Someone I know has a family member studying in Italy and has found a perfect solution to UK TV that's easy to set up and affordable.

In summary:

Decent WiFi or tethering
Amazon Firestick (must be revised version or 4k version to work with VPN)
Various Firestick TV apps (BBC etc)
NordVPN subscription
NordVPN Firestick App
NordVPN dedicated UK IP Address


In Detail:
This person, who shall remain nameless, bought an Amazon Firestick which plugs straight into an HDMI port on a TV. You can get one delivered tomorrow to the local Amazon drop off point from amazon.co.uk. amazon.es, amazon.it, amazon.fr etc using your UK Amazon Prime Account.

Firestick has its own "app store". BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Channel 5, Netflix, Amazon Prime video are all available. The TV Player app brings it all together in a Sky like program guide. There's a new Apple TV app as well. Naughty people apparantly download the Kodi app and watch other people's awful and illegal smartphone recordings of the latest Hollywood films.

Most of the TV apps won't work abroad though - the BBC and others look for a connection from a UK internet IP address. So, the solution is to create a Virtual Private Network (that's a "pipe" through the internet back to a server in the UK and then out to the outside world so that the TV companies see a UK IP internet address rather than a foreign one)

After much trial and error with other VPN providers, my friend subscribed to NordVPN.com (about £6 per month) then downloaded and setup the NordVPN app on the Firestick (which is very straightforward). My friend just clicks the "connect to UK" button in Nordvpn's app and then starts up the required TV app.

So, £39 for a firestick and £12 per month for uninterrupted UK TV.

There are a few complications.

1. The BBC and others play the equivalent of "whack a mole" with the VPN providers' UK servers. Many hundreds of users connecting to the BBC from the same IP address must look suspicious plus I imagine they themselves simply subscribe to the leading VPN providers and just "whack" a new server when it appears in the VPN server list. So, my friend says you either have to be prepared to try a few servers in NordVPN's list OR subscribe for a further £6 per month to your own Private VPN. My friend has done this and the solution has worked like a charm with any tweaking or messing about.

2. Firestick needs a USB power supply and many TVs have an unused USB socket. When setting up, the Firestick sometimes grumbles that it needs more power and asks for the supplied adaptor but my friend ignores this - only Apple TV app's setup insisted.

Hope this helps!

Mike
Click to expand...

Yes, I know of the Firestick - I think it can even run Kodi.
And you are correct about them catching up with the VPN providers.

I have a neater solution to this.
My own VPN.
I connect a couple of DD-WRT routers with some bespoke setup.
One on the boat in Spain - the other in the UK.
These routers set up a VPN tunnel so that all my internet can pop up in the UK using my home IP address.
That works fine and I used it for may years - I still do.
But 3 years ago, the need for all this VPN stuff was removed.
Just buy a UK mobile phone data package in the UK from a UK supplier and you will always get a UK IP address - no need for a VPN.

Thanks for posting though - I will have another look at the Firestick.
 
Bandit said:
As far as Radio goes BBC are changing over from iPlayer to Sounds as an app platform.
Click to expand...

Yep altho it is a shame they've done this, sounds is a pita compared to the old iplayer radio app. I've switched to the android radioplayer app which is a lot easier to use than sounds.
 
for those wanting Radio, get an app called TuneIn Radio, you'll get pretty much any radio station worldwide including all the BBC's.

In Sweden, we've had various VPN's, BBC is good a tracking them down one by one and closing them down, there are a few that still work. I've discovered www.smartdnsproxy.com been running it for a couple of years now. There's always a free 2 week trial, and various offers, I pay $20 a year, and you have to change a DNS code on the device you want to watch on as per the location you want it to route to. If you're looking to mirror, both devices need to be set to it.

It's stable, when it doesn't work you just need to login in to your page to reactivate your IP, so if travelling or on a mobile it may need to be done a little more regularly but only takes a minute.
 
Hi are you folk watching Netflix on a TV (abroad) Through my Apple TV box it shows me all my choices, I can select a film and when I go to play it it shows an error. (139:NFErr......) I can watch on my iPad but when I try to screen mirror it says it doesn’t support AirPlay.
I do like to watch TV on a TV
 
DavidJ said:
Hi are you folk watching Netflix on a TV (abroad) Through my Apple TV box it shows me all my choices, I can select a film and when I go to play it it shows an error. (139:NFErr......) I can watch on my iPad but when I try to screen mirror it says it doesn’t support AirPlay.
I do like to watch TV on a TV
Click to expand...

Yep - Channel 4 play this game as well.
My ships PC is linked to the TVs on the boat so sometimes I play TV using a browser but then Channel 4 also needs Flash loaded - its a minefield!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top