Did you know that we’re running very low on IP addresses? Really it’s true, the rising numbers of devices online that need an IP address is using them all up. Many experts agree that there are now less than 14% available IP addresses left in the pool. The introduction of IPV6 will not come a minute too soon, which solves this problem. We are all defined to some extent by our IP address, what we can see, what we can do and even to what extent out governments monitor us online.
Your IP address first of all is tied to your location, so if you’re surfing from the UK, you’ll have a UK address. If your ISP is in Berlin then you’ll have a German IP address and so on. This is important as a lot of what we can do online is actually governed by this fact. Let’s take something like the BBC Iplayer for instance, a wonderful media site run by the BBC but unfortunately only available to those surfing from a UK IP address. Hulu is another example, with lots of great programs online it is very attractive site to visit yet if don’t have a US IP address forget it.
Every media site on the web, restricts access based on some restrictions usually IP address. It’s also used to do somethign called Price Discrimination, the practice of splitting the price you charge different people in order maximise profits. For instance Napster charge different prices to each section of customers depending on where they are. This is all worked out based on your IP adress and it’s called geotargeting.
This is where proxies come in, these are servers that sit between you and the web site you are visiting. So when you visit a web site it sees the proxy server address and not yours. Usually this is used for privacy issues but it does have an added benefit if you want to watch content online that is blocked to your current IP address. That is why I have to connect through a UK proxy when I’m working outside Britain so I can watch things like the BBC and ITV. A German living in America would need to use a German proxy to access media sites in his homeland.
The market for these proxies are growing, some people search around for free ones but it is a time consuming job and ultimately a frustrating one. 99% of the free servers are so overloaded that they fall over very quickly and it’s normally impossible to stream any video content over these servers. They are out there, but its extremely time consuming and the search never ends.
If you look for a provider make sure you aren’t charged by country, the best proxy providers charge a single fee for access to a range of servers. Absolutely essential if you want to get access everything the internet has to offer.
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