Maybe one day it may happen, but BBC Iplayer in the USA doesn’t look likely soon..  But you might be interested that it is not impossible to watch BBC TV from the US.  Simply getting rid of the adverts makes TV so much more watchable, if you’ve ever watched the same programme with and without commercial breaks you’ll know what I mean.  The two don’t even compare, the endless breaks spoil the structure and the flow of most programmes so given the choice I try to watch UK TV abroad if I can.

So BBC Iplayer USA – how’s it done ?
Actually there are quite a few options, of bypassing the restrictions that actually block you watching from the US.  The blocking technology is called geotargeting and is quite simple, when you connect to a web site your IP address is looked up from  a database.  Each and every IP address can be linked to a specific country, so BBC Iplayer simply checks to see where yours is registered.   If it’s based in UK fine it works, anything outside the UK and you’ll get a little notice saying you cannot access the programme.

So all you need to do is to change the IP address that the BBC website sees, which can be achieved by using a proxy server.  A proxy server is a compueter that will sit between you and the web site you visit.  You probably use one at work or college without realising, most companies route all their internet traffic through a proxy server for security and speed reasons.
So all you need to do to watch BBC Iplayer from the USA is to ensure you access through a UK based proxy server.  When you do then the IP address that is recorded by BBC Iplayer is a UK one and you won’t be blocked from accessing IPlayer from anywhere.  Now before you go dashing off looking for a UK based proxy server to stream the BBC across let me give you some advice.

You have two main options to using a UK proxy server, and they are find a free one or used a paid proxy service. Unsurprisingly, most people will initially try to find free proxies – I certainly did! There are numerous free proxies available online but unfortunately they are often hard to find, the reason is because the ones suitable for watching video online are very scarce.  There are very few fast free proxies available online and when they appear they are normally overloaded in a matter of hours.  So the search to enable BBC Iplayer abroad will be a continual one, every time you want to watch a programme you’ll have to find a new UK proxy which can get very frustrating.

There’s of course a less attractive way of accessing BBC Iplayer in the usa and that’s using a paid proxy service.  The drawbacks are obviously the obvious one that it costs money, the benefits though are security,speed and reliability. Using ones of the paid proxy services means you are able to watch anytime, over the fast connection.
With the increase in all sorts of blocking, filtering and censorship, these private proxy services are becoming increasingly popular.  Whichever method you use I hope you enjoy some of the best telly on the internet.