Magic DNS

Date: June 6, 2012

*UPDATE*Nov 28, 2013*

A new set of DNS is been tested and works on Singtel’s 4G.  Some routers have DNS rerouting capability and refuse the users to make use of the customised DNS on their IOS devices.  Netflix is doing a lot of changes and may break all these wonderful VPN services.  

  109.74.12.20,109.123.111.24

*End of UPDATE*

A good friend of mine from Malaysia taught me the following.

Disclaimer: This blog entry is for educational purpose only. Netflix only available for US region. Same as others IPTV. I merely wanted to investigate how things work on Internet. How they detect your Asian IP, and is tgere a way to by pass. As for you, you use it on your decision, and you use it at your risk.

Netflix
===
Netflix is a popular IPTV streaming service that offers lots of content. Unfortunately, it's only available in US. The cost is US$7.95/month

Apple TV
===
Apple TV is a small set top box from Apple. It stream TV and movies from the Cloud. Unfortunately, they charged by every show and TV episode.

Now, Apple TV support Netflix too. It's a great combination.

VPN
===
You can buy VPN service, so that you will get a US IP Address, and it will allow you to access to Netflix content.

There are various provider. Such as VPN Express. So all the while I always thought that you need a US IP Address in order to access these web sites. It becomes not cheap once you add on a VPN acct. it also cause quite a number of problem. I.e. VPN server sometimes is slow, VPN server got cap on bandwidth usage, you need to run VPN service every time before you use Netflix. All these steps becomes not so elegant to access Netflix.

Magic DNS
===
(If you already have a Netflix acct, you can simply setup the DNS as below, and you no longer need the VPN service)

I was wrong. If you have a DNS that you can use that has an Server IP address from US, you can actually configure your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV to the following DNS Address.

190.14.36.90 & 109.123.111.24

For Apple TV, you need only 1 address.

For IOS devices, you can but both address separated by a comma.

After you have done so, all your IOS devices can access Netflix content on your huge powerful broadband. (For my case, I use ViewQwest 100Mbps).

This DNS is owned by Playmo.TV. Their aim is to provide this DNS service for I think US$4.95 per
Month.

So, my answer is clear now. You do not need a US IP to access Netflix. What you need is a US DNS that has a DNS IP address.

So, for me, I have a dedicated Air Port extreme Wifi specially to run my Apple TV and I make sure it always use the Magic DNS. Then I am able to watch Netflix content.

The downside is, when you surf to Netflix website, the magic DNS will overwrite the address to point to Playmo.TV. Some people may not like that.

That means if you do not have a mean to sign up for a Netflix acct, you still need a VPN to do so. But once you have the Netflix acct, you can use your own Internet bandwidth to access the streaming content. And it is much faster.

So far it is my 7th day of experiment with it. My kids enjoyed all the cartoons. And I am watching Movies too.

Good luck!

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