Geo-blocked content: go online through a home, not a data centre
By Dr.-Ing. Andreas Walter, Founder & CEO ·
"Not available in your country." Most of us have seen it - abroad on holiday, or living in one country and following the league of another. Technically, the answer is surprisingly simple: be online where the content is allowed. Here is how Awacino does that through a real home connection.
Why the stream says no
TV channels, sports streams and music services often hold their rights per country. They decide where you are by the public address your connection comes from. On a hotel Wi-Fi in Spain you are "in Spain" - even for the channel you pay for at home.
A word up front, because it matters to me: what you may watch is set by the terms of the service and the rights in your country. Awacino does not change who you are; it lets you be online through a connection you are entitled to use - your own home, or a friend who invites you.
Through your own or a friend's home internet
Our use case Ali on the balcony shows the idea. Ali lives in Italy, the race plays only in Austria. His friend Pascal in Vienna opens Awacino at home and sends Ali a Beam-in code, choosing that Ali may go online through his connection. Ali enters the code on his iPad and taps Beam in. The iPad gets a SituIP in Pascal's home network, its traffic leaves through Pascal's internet in Austria - and the stream sees Austria.
With your own home it is even simpler: put Awacino on one device that stays at home - a PC, a Mac, a spare phone or a Raspberry Pi - and beam out to it from your phone or laptop wherever you are. Your bank and your services see you at home, not abroad.
Why a home connection is different
Commercial VPN services send you out through servers in a data centre, shared with many other customers, and many streaming services try to recognise such addresses. A home connection is what it is: one household's internet line. With Awacino the connection goes directly from your device to that home, end-to-end encrypted, and never through our servers - we only introduce the two ends.
Overlay networks such as Tailscale can route your traffic through a friend's machine too, as an exit node. That is a fine tool if you already run one; it needs their client on both sides and the friend's machine in your network. With Awacino your friend simply sends one code, and that code is all you get.
A remote-control tool is no answer here: watching a race on the screen of a remote PC means watching a picture of a picture. With Awacino the stream plays in your own app on your own device.
Safe for the friend who helps
Lending your internet is a matter of trust, so we built it to stay under the friend's control:
- Nothing opens on the router. Pascal's device dials out; no port, no forwarding, nothing reachable from the internet.
- One code, one device. The code belongs to the first device that redeems it; forwarded codes do not get in.
- The friend decides the scope. The whole network, or one device only; whether Ali may go online through it, or only reach what Pascal shares.
- Off with one tap. Pascal pauses the code after the race or revokes it for good, and it stops working at once.
The app tells the friend clearly that this traffic will look as if it came from his connection. Give a code only to people you trust - and ask only friends who trust you.
The same idea at work
What lets Ali watch a race is useful in companies every day. Some portals and admin pages accept logins only from the office's own address; a colleague abroad beams out to the office and goes online through the office connection, the same way. And because it works behind CGNAT and on 5G mobile networks, with no static IP and no router configuration, the home or office on the other end needs nothing special - only one device with Awacino.
More on the network side: SituIP and our security pages.
What it costs compared with a VPN service
The usual answer to geo-blocking is a VPN service bought for the purpose. Here is what you pay for in each case - structures, not amounts.
| Geo-unblocking VPN services (e.g. NordVPN) | Awacino | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | a subscription per account, monthly or yearly | slots: the device at home and each Beam-in code; 2 slots are free, and an extra private slot is bought once, not as a subscription |
| Where you go online | shared servers in data centres, used by many customers | a real home connection - your own or a friend's |
| How streaming services see it | data-centre addresses are often recognised and blocked | a household's own internet connection |
| What you need | their app; servers in many countries to choose from | a home in that country - yours or a friend's - with one device running Awacino |
To be fair: if you have nobody in the country you need, or you want a different country every week, a VPN service is the simpler choice. If there is a home you may use - your own, or a friend who invites you - Awacino puts you on that real connection, and the friend stays in control of the code. Either way, each streaming service's terms apply. Our plans are on the pricing page.
Download the app and try it with your own home, or read more for private usage.
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About the author
Dr.-Ing. Andreas Walter founded Awacino and designs its network technology.