Today the globe is connected by intricate networks made of wireless signals, radio waves, and digital pulses. Millions of meters of fiber cables have been laid in the ocean to connect continents, satellites transmit high speed signals where wires can’t, and wireless signals coming from Wi-Fi routers and cellular towers connect our mobile devices to the internet.

From source to destination, the world is connected. So much so that you can easily create an internet session in almost any country in the world. Effectively you are creating a connection to a server that will surf the Web on your behalf, connect you to your apps using its identity, and help you connect to other resources on the internet.

You could connect to a server in your own country as it doesn’t matter where the server is. However, most people take advantage of the fact that they can connect to a server in another country and the overseas server will make all requests to connect to resource using its IP address.

• What is an IP address?It is similar pretty much the same as having a home address, so people know where to send you mail. Almost every device that communicates on the internet will use an IP address to receive information just like your mailbox at home.

The most popular reason for accessing servers overseas is for things such as TV or to access sports and movie websites. For example, if you are from Holland you and you wanted to watch TV back in your home country while abroad, you might log on to your hotel’s internet and discover that most of your Dutch websites are unavailable. This because the servers do not allow connection from outside Holland.

Maybe you want to access HBONOWNederland, then you would be able to if you have VPN server software or the IP address of a proxy server in Holland. Once you are connected a Dutch server that makes the aforementioned resource requests on your behalf, those requests will come from a Dutch IP address, so the move server would then accept the request for information (RFI request).

The VPN or proxy server will send all information retrieved on your behalf to your device. All the time you are making these connections, you are protected by advanced encryption preventing anyone other you and the server seeing what information is being exchanged.

Netflix members will use VPNs for a different reason. As Netflix operates in over 100 countries worldwide, you can log onto their servers from almost any country. However, when you do this, Netflix will only give you that country’s local Netflix catalog. This means movies and series could be missing. As a result, you would want to connect to your local version of Netflix, and to do that you would need a server in your home country.

For more information, you can check out HBO kijken where you can find out how to use VPN software to connect to information overseas.