Cloud technology has completely transformed the ways that we access online content. A variety of streaming services use the cloud to connect users with the content they are looking for. Dacast has a post on the 15 best cloud streaming services. Many businesses are leveraging these solutions to provide content to their viewers, since 94% of them have discovered that it is the best way to grow their brands. However, the biggest beneficiaries are content streaming platforms like Netflix.
Netflix uses AWS cloud services for optimizing almost all of its services. The cloud services provided through AWS help with everything from video transcribing, analytics, data storage and much more.
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Many people want to watch their favorite sports programs through these cloud streaming services. However, that is not always immediately possible. Many video streaming services use geolocation technology to restrict access to people in certain regions.
Many people have historically been able to use VPNs to bypass geolocation restrictions. We have talked about the benefits big data has brought to VPN technology. Unfortunately, older generations of VPNs are not able to avoid these restrictions as easily. The good news is that newer VPNs are designed with cloud services in mind.
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You should learn how cloud VPNs work and how they can be used to watch sports over cloud video streaming services like Netflix.
More People Are Using Cloud VPNs to Watch Sports Content Over the Cloud
Digital sports streaming, sometimes called esports, has fostered hundreds of millions of viewers. Sports overall is probably the single paradigm with the largest most loyal audience in the world, aside from maybe religion itself. Joking aside, live TV sports viewers are in the billions, especially where some of the top events like; Football/Soccer, the Olympics, contact sports and basketball are concerned. This is because the cloud has made it easier for fans all over the world to watch their favorite sports from their homes.
Now, audiences have happily transitioned to digital streaming and the old television set is being slowly left behind. Cloud streaming is already appealing to hundreds of millions of people all over the world. The cloud makes it cost-effective for people to watch their content without significant lags in their content.
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As far as digital streaming goes, there are so many options out there to catch any sports event you like as you can get informed about everything that is going on or going to happen via the internet. Cloud-based video streaming is a wonderful thing, but of course, it has its drawbacks and is not a panacea. With licensing rights leading to geographical blocking, the issue is that you cannot always watch all sports wherever you are. But, have no fear, with a VPN you can watch sports online from anywhere with a bit of patience, practice, and knowledge.
New VPNs are designed specifically for accessing cloud content. There are a lot of reasons that cloud-based VPNs are preferable:
- They tend to have greater levels of anonymity. You will connect to a VPN through the cloud, which makes it harder for your real IP to be leaked. This means it is harder to trace your actual location.
- Cloud VPNs have exceptional encryption. This shields your privacy better, even though traditional VPNs offer great privacy protection.
- When you are connecting to a cloud VPN, you will establish more seamless connections to servers in other regions. This can make your location look more authentic to geolocation tools.
There are huge benefits of using cloud VPNs when you need to connect to sports streaming services or other content.
What is a Cloud-Based VPN?
A VPN is a powerful little tool that is capable of so many beneficial things. The Virtual Private Network has not been around for everyone across the globe cross-platform for that long. It has only been about a decade, give or take. Cloud-based VPNs are even newer development.
A VPN is a downloadable application (in some cases a solution integrated into hardware but in our case not) that places the internet user’s entire internet connection into an encrypted tunnel. With VPN technology, a user can select a global server of their choice, which then replaces the IP address of the internet connection (the physical location.) This means that if you live in the UK and connect to a U.S. server, your ISP and the rest of the internet will think you are in the U.S. where that VPN provider’s server is.
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Modifying the virtual location of your IP address means that your ISP and the internet will believe you are where you say you are (the server you access.) If you connect to a server in India, you can browse the Indian version of YouTube, Google and all the rest, for example. This is why VPNs are so handy for marketing research, and finding lower prices on online services.
A new generation of cloud VPNs take this concept to the next level. You can read more about cloud VPNs here.
What Are the Benefits of Unblocking Sports Content with a Cloud VPN?
A VPN is a very versatile tool, and one of the most popular is its ability to unblock services such as digital streaming. Like we said above, due to licensing rights digital streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ or any other big commercial streaming services will have geographically variable licensing rights. In much the same way, a user can unblock sports events that are broadcast online. There are a lot of cloud-based sports streaming platforms out there, from ESPN, NBC to BT sports being some of the most popular ones that stream the most hyped sports events.
If a user is subscribed to a digital streaming platform like those listed above, the licensing rights and even the program catalogue will be different from country to country, even though it is the same brand. For this reason, a UK Netflix user will not be able to watch their UK Netflix catalogue in the U.S., and vice versa because it is tuned that way. The user will be met with a message such as “Not available in your region.” It is impossible to get around this without using a VPN.
Using a VPN allows you to pretend you are physically located in another country, and as such you can access all version of Netflix. The caveat here is that this does not work with all VPNs, and you must use a premium VPN with a high-grade anonymization protocol that will trick Netflix’s servers. Cloud-based VPNs are even more effective, due to the higher levels of anonymity.
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As for sports streaming, sometimes it is possible to find a legitimate free sports stream e.g., that is based in Japan. These can be found with a simple online search that includes a search query like: “Where can I watch the Tokyo Olympics for free?” In that case, a user may like to connect to a Japanese server to catch action that would otherwise be impossible. Sometimes, these websites will clusers to subscribe, where a VPN helps a lot too.
Another example is that a Russian digital streaming platform could be hosting the Russian swimming championships, but only within Russia. Again, connecting to a Russian server via a premium VPN like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Cyberghost, PIA, Mullvad and others would allow the user to do this.
Cloud VPNs Make it Easier to Watch Streaming Services
Using a cloud VPN to unblock services is not illegal in general, but a user should always check the laws in their country to be certain. Not only does a VPN unblock streaming for you, but keeps you away from malicious ads, malware and hackers as well by encrypting and tunneling your connection.