If you’re longing for buffet-style on-demand movies and TV programmes, you know, like Netflix or Hulu Plus, there’s some great news for you. Netflix is finally coming to Singapore. It’ll be officially available locally. There’s no need anymore for VPN and DNS magic services to circumvent geographical availability restrictions. You don’t need your ISP’s value added geolocation magic either.
Some Singapore users are already subscribing to overseas streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. The numbers, however, are likely small enough to not have much of an impact to StarHub and SingTel. With Netflix now available directly locally, things might just change in a couple of months.
In case you’re not familiar with Netflix, it’s a provider of on-demand Internet streaming media. It originally started in the U.S., but is now available in numerous countries including many parts of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Netflix has a reasonably large repertoire of movies and TV programs, but don’t expect the latest movie blockbusters to be available. They have some original programming of their own, such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Netflix also has several exclusive programming deals.
Until this announcement, Singapore users who wanted to access Netflix have had to use a U.S. VPN service, or a DNS service that aids in circumventing geo-blocks. Local ISP MyRepublic markets Teleport, a DNS service, that also helps access geo-blocked services in the U.S.
You can view Netflix content either through a web browser on your computer, or via numerous media streaming devices. The list includes D-Link Boxee Box, Google Chromecast, Roku, and various Western Digital media players. A number of smart TVs from LG, Samsung, Philips, Sharp and Sony also support Netflix.
Would you give up your StarHub TV or SingTel TV for Netflix and other online streaming providers?
not yet as of today 01 Oct 2015