My wife and I moved to Queensland last year and one of the things we were most looking forward to about our move over here was the great outdoor lifestyle that we could have living in Queensland, and we were not disappointed! We have done more in the last 12 months than we have had the opportunity to do in YEARS in the UK. We are by no means telly addicts and watch significantly less TV over here than we did in England. Despite this, there are some evenings where we do enjoy watching the television and do miss some of the series that we used to watch on Sky. After a while of watching ‘Free to air’ TV it doesn’t take long to become tired of watching a 30minute tv programme dragged out to over 50 minutes or even an hour due to breaks every five minutes.
We looked into, but couldn’t believe the prices charged by Foxtel for what is essentially a much inferior service to the likes of Sky in the UK. We just couldn’t justify expense for the small amount of channels that they offer but did want to have access to a large amount of content as, let’s face it, free to air TV in Australia isn’t exactly the best.
I was a regular subscriber to ‘Netflix’ in the UK, but was disappointed to find that Netflix hadn’t arrived in Australia yet. I wanted the option of continuing to stream my Netflix content whilst living here in Australia so I set about searching for a solution that would let me do this.
I researched nearly all of the VPN service providers. A VPN service (Virtual Private Network) allows you to connect to a server in different parts of the world which, in short, makes your computer / iPad / tablet etc. think that you are in that country. I must stress that this is completely legal, though the majority of expats just don’t understand the concept of this (hence this article). After researching and reviewing most of the different companies out there, I finally settled on the solution provided by HMA. They, hand’s down had the best reviews and quality of service on offer out of all of their competitors and what’s more, they are extremely cheap ($11 a month for a monthly membership, cheaper still if you subscribe for 6 months or more) and they allow me to pay via PayPal so I know that my payments are easy and secure!
I initially took out a one month subscription with them to try out their service, paid with my PayPal account and downloaded their connection software which was extremely easy! Once downloaded, I logged into the service with my username and password, selected one of dozens of servers in the country of my choice (in this case, the UK) and clicked connect, that was it! I opened up my web browser, navigated to www.netflix.co.uk and logged in just as I would as if I were in the UK. I was initially skeptical about how the quality of the streaming would hold up given that we are tens of thousands of miles away from the servers in the UK but let me tell you, I was pleasantly surprised. Once I clicked on a video to watch, it buffers for around 20 seconds and then plays flawlessly for the entire show, no stuttering or pauses whilst re-buffering, just smooth, streaming HD content! I even connected my iPad up to the VPN service which I can switch on and off as I please to watch Netflix on my iPad, great when I’m travelling interstate with work trying to pass time time in Airport waiting lounges. Better still when you connect the iPad or laptop up to the TV to watch this content on the big screen in HD!
After a week or so of catching up on some shows from Netflix, instead of selecting a server from the UK, I selected a server in Los Angeles from the dropdown menu and decided to check out the services offered by Hulu. I had heard of this website before but never really had the opportunity to check it out as it is only accessible from within the United States.
Hulu is a free service which offers you the ability of streaming currently airing TV shows just 8 days after they have been on air in the USA, there are even box sets of entire series of popular US shows, my wife particularly likes being up to date with ‘Revenge’ rather than waiting a couple of months for it to air in Australia. The streaming quality is also just as perfect as Netflix and the only time that it stutters slightly is during the adverts as the ad’s are subsequently being streamed to hulu from servers hosted by the advertising agency, but this doesn’t impact on the quality of service whatsoever.
Then came the interesting part, I had one day forgotten that I was connected to the the USA VPN rather than the UK and logged in to my Netflix account, I was surprised to see MUCH more shows and films available to stream than I could get in the UK, this makes sense I believe that there is a greater library on the American servers than there is on the UK servers. Again, there is no loss of quality and perfect (advertising free) streaming in HD to my TV via my laptop or iPad.
Once I had closed my UK bank accounts I was in a bit of a pickle as to how I was going to pay for my Netflix subscription as it didn’t recognize my Australian address as being valid. I then found the option to ‘gift’ Netflix so now, each month I purchase a Netflix online gift card from my Australian account, email it to myself and activate the gift token for another full month of Netflix for around 6 pounds a month … simple!
I have shown my set up to many expats and Aussies alike and most have signed up to this themselves, a few have even cancelled their Foxtel subscriptions!
Note, although it is also possible to watch content from all of the UK broadcasters via the likes of the BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Demand Five and ITV Player, morally speaking, you really should purchase a TV license if you want to watch or download programmes from the BBC iPlayer.
My internet service is with iiNet and as I’m not on the NBN I only get about a 3Mbit connection Most people in Australia will get anywhere between 8 – 100Mbit to this is all the speed you need to get a decent quality streaming service. I have a download limit of 100GB per month, watch 2 – 3 shows an evening and have never hit my limit. I would recommend between a 60 GB and 100GB (or above) monthly data allowance if you plan to stream lots of content.
