How to watch Sochi Winter Olympics online

The 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony starts in just two days, hosted in Sochi, Russia. It is currently billed as one of the most expensive Olympics ever. With the progression of the internet more and more events are now possible to be viewed online and in the majority of cases live as they happen. Unfortunately buying the rights to broadcast such events comes at a great expense and numbers as high as US$4.38 billion have been reported being paid by US network NBC to broadcast the event and future ones up until 2020.
Due to the cost issues there are very few countries who are going to be broadcasting the winter games with the main ones being the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Unfortunately for those based in the US the network NBC which has the rights will require you to have a subscription to that channel and to login to watch the games, this means for a huge portion of american viewers and viewers who do not reside in one of the three remaining countries that your chance of watching the games is pretty much reduced to zero.

With events stretching from the 6th February 2014 right up until 23rd February 2014 and up to 89 countries taking part from Albania to Zimbabwe that is an awful lot of events that are unavailable to an awful lot of countries.

But never fear! There is a way to watch the Sochi Olympics online anywhere in the world!
The UK broadcaster the BBC will be showing all events streamed live online. The downside to this is you have to be a UK resident to access this directly, however there is an extremely easy way to appear as if you’re in the UK to the BBC website thus bypassing any geographical restrictions that are in place and best of all, the product to do this is totally legal!

What you need is a Virtual Private Network, or better known by its initials, a VPN.
A VPN is basically a computer (server) somewhere else that feeds everything you do on your home internet connection through that third party connection and then on to the internet, their original use was by business so workers away from home could access the office. It probably sounds really complicated but the process from most providers is just one or two simple clicks to get up and running. In this case you need to connect to a server that is in the United Kingdom, once connected anything you do on the internet now, to the websites you visit, appears to them as if you’re located in the UK, when you disconnect you’re back to your normal connection. Due to this the BBC website will now stream you the live Winter Olympics events as if you are sat in the UK, even if you may be in Australia or China, the US or even Barbados. It really doesn’t matter where you are in the world, this process works for anyone.

So once you’re connected all you have to do is then head over to the BBC Winter Olympics site. Its also possible to connect to a Canadian server and catch some of the events on CBC.
You’re probably thinking it sounds too good to be true? Well, a VPN services costs money, but again, don’t worry, a good provider will only charge you about $5-$10 (£3-£6) at most and lets be honest, the Winter Olympics are only going to be on for about a month, so one month service will be ideal. There are plenty of other good uses for a VPN like watching the British BBC iPlayer anywhere in the world or watching the American Hulu service anywhere in the world, so you may wish to keep your service after the one month, but even if you don’t, you have only spent the price of one beer to have access to hundreds of events as they happen which is roughly 650 hours!

So you’re probably wondering, what VPN service do I get and how do I know if it is a good one? Luckily for you our site is dedicated to reviewing VPN services and so we’ve already tested more than a handful of providers to weed the good from the bad. Personally I would recommend looking at one of the following three providers because not only have we reviewed the first two and found them to be reliable and fast but a provider like VPN also has simple software and apps for all systems from Windows, Mac, Apple and Android.

Name of the Provider	Website Address
Hide My Ass	Visit Provider
Strong VPN	Visit Provider
Switch VPN	Visit Provider
Pure VPN	Visit Provider
IPVanish VPN	Visit Provider
Hotspot Shield Elite	Visit Provider