Tiekom Spanish Sim , VPN and Logging into Work Intranet

[jopparocks]

I'm a bit puzzled by the some aspects of the VPN thing.
I'm off to Spain tomorrow and when I get there I want to watch Netflix, Amazon etc on my tv. I think I'm ok with this as to do the TV streaming thing I have purchased a Tiekom sim card as it gives me a lot of gb's and I will use this as a hotspot. I have also installed a VPN (Proton VPN) on my android phone so that I can access my UK login and stream the tv shows on my Roku stick as if I was in the UK. I think I've go my head round that - so far so good
However, my wife will also be doing some work when we are away and will be logging onto her work intranet on her work laptop. She will be using my android phone and Tiekom sim as a hotspot. It is here I am on shakier ground. My question (a) is will the VPN on my phone cover my wife logging onto her work intranet on her laptop or does the laptop need a VPN installed as well? and (b) will she need a VPN at all to login to her work intranet?
Cheers Martin

 

[meanders]

Hi Martin.

It depends on the company she works for, and the sensitivity of any data to be accessed, but I would be astounded in this day and age if they were not providing a secure gateway login complete with what effectively is a VPN. She will need that installed on the laptop if not already so. Does she login to the intranet at home on the same laptop? If so, it should work fine irrespective of how its communicating to the web because all your phone and SIM is providing is a pathway to the web. However, as you are going abroad, the IT team may need to permit connection from a different geographical area unless the secure gateway includes a VPN. What I am saying here is that she really needed to talk to her IT team/helpdesk/support, which is clearly now too late.

Some companies provide a web interface and all the security is between that and the systems being accessed, and rely on login credentials to secure it, but no company I have ever worked for or provided IT support to would ever do that apart from for the off-site hosted actual website that was a separate entity with no on-line access possible to the internal systems. It's absolutely fine for anything of a non-sensitive nature, or if it's hosted as a webservice segregated from the core business systems.

However, that said, I am reasonably certain it will work, if it currently works from home.

Email will work fine so she can always contact the IT support if she has problems.

Good luck .... Robin

 

[Kups]

You will need a VPN installed on each device that you want to watch British TV on.

 

[RV-AL]

You will need a VPN installed on each device that you want to watch British TV on.Lots of the tv providers can detect a VPN and will not give you access. Bbc iPlayer, itvX, Apple TV, prime sky etc

 

[jopparocks]

Thanks for the brilliant thoughtful answers. Just the info I need.

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[jopparocks]

You will need a VPN installed on each device that you want to watch British TV on.

I am accessing an Avtex TV through my phone with a Roku stick. I am assuming that my phone is the only device that needs a vpn for this.

 

[starquake]

I am accessing an Avtex TV through my phone with a Roku stick. I am assuming that my phone is the only device that needs a vpn for this.

Your roku stick or any stick also needs a vpn. Your phones vpn usually only acts as a vpn for the phone itself.

It's why many of us use firesticks as vpn apps are plentiful and easy to use on them -> I did use to have a Roku, but when I had one there was not an app available for vpn on it.

 

[starquake]

Your roku stick or any stick also needs a vpn. Your phones vpn usually only acts as a vpn for the phone itself.

It's why many of us use firesticks as vpn apps are plentiful and easy to use on them -> I did use to have a Roku, but when I had one there was not an app available for vpn on it.

Should say there is an alternative, if you get a van wide wifi system you can implement the vpn on the router. However it's rare to be able to do it on a phone and a iphone can't do this, an android technically can,..

Equally to do it on a router in a van (with a sim card) only certain routers allow VPN (if you check your vpn providers website it'll list which they support).. The Teltonica series to my knowledge do, same with Mikrotik, however certainally my ZTE device does not have this favility (either of them). I don't know about Netgear or Huawei as I own neither.

 

[starquake]

Also ref; wife working, even with a vpn on router, some work wifi detection systems can still detect you are abroad and will flag her if that is banned in company policy. A bank I worked for ended up sacking someone I worked with when they detected him using his phone (with vpn) in Sweden as it was against terms of employment to do this without prior agreement. If he had asked before he left it would likely have been granted, but as he didn't, he directly breached his employment contract. The boss couldn't do anything about it, not could his Union given the training we do annually is clear on needing to ask if you want to work from abroad.

I worked in IT and the system work employed worked with software that detected wifi hotspots near you -> so if your work laptop spotted a campsite wifi, the work system could geolocate you just from the beacon from the nearby wifi. (even when you were not even connected to it). So just warning you it's not even as simple as just say usijng a UK sim card from abroad, you'll get caught in some orgnaisations just by a nearby wifi hotspot!

 

[jerryz]

The vpn is likely to slow your connections down somewhat ,,

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[starquake]

The vpn is likely to slow your connections down somewhat ,,

Depends on the vpn, I've had expressvpn working at over 1Gbit/sec.

It's technical but most delays are caused by the bandwidth delay product, which is a term for saying basically further away something is the speed of light restricts the max speed technically possible (regardless of if mobile via UK etc). Tehcnically if you are accessing a service in the UK (like iplayer) via a VPN thats based in UK, using the VPN adds about 1-2ms of additional delay compared with the speed of light direct to iplayer. This will slow you slightly but only by a few Kbit/sec.

If however you have a terrible connection thats lossy the latency will cause far more delay than the VPN's 1-2ms added. (ie, there would be no difference between direct access and via VPN in one way).

So likely, nope. It's more a case it'll to do it in all cases but the impact is a few K, not even 1Mbit in most cases unless you on a very poor connection in first place. For most users it's inperceivable, assuming you are not using a congested or busy vpn provider.

If you run your own vpn server in your house however, it may be terrible as most home broadband is limited to a tiny amount upload (which is your download when abroad). I would not reccomend people as a general rule create their own vpn using their home broadband when away precisely for this reason as it WILL slow you down. Using a big vpn provider (Surfshark/ExpressVPN) is usually imperceivable from direct access.

 

[Moose Mobile]

“A bank I worked for ended up sacking someone I worked with when they detected him using his phone…”

My employer takes the same approach. They would refuse any request to work from another country and would also deny me entry to an office in another country if not officially travelling “on business”. (All to do with tax, work permits, business regulations and data secrecy…)

I took the hint and forget all about work when on holiday

 

[Bessy765]

We have just come back from a long trip to both Spain and Portugal. Using the Tiekom sim whilst in Spain which worked very well, the only thing we found was Amazon Prime detected we were using a VPN and would not let us watch their movies without paying for them even as we are prime members. But 1,2,3,4,5 etc were fine as was ITVX bbc iPlayer. We just watched U which was fine. Or use our UK sim for Prime. We spent a long time in Portugal so used Portugal internet which was great and unlimited as Tiekom only allows 200 gb outside of Spain and we are heavy users.

 

[MichaelT]

We have the Tiekom sim and been using it since we left home last Wednesday watching football on now and discovery +, iplayer and itvx. We are using nord vpn on all devices as our ZTE router doesn't allow one on there, this is also on the firestick to allow watching UK tv, only issue we have had is itvx recognised the vpn while we watched mask singer and cut us off near the end. We did have a dedicated ip with nord that got recognised so we cancelled that and just use default, it normally goes to Manchester.

Make sure there is an.app for your firestick vpn, as I say we have nord at 39 quid a year from 2gosoftware and it works, speed is throttled a bit but we have had good 5g connections thru france and on movistar (whose sim it is anyway) in Spain.

 

[starquake]

We have just come back from a long trip to both Spain and Portugal. Using the Tiekom sim whilst in Spain which worked very well, the only thing we found was Amazon Prime detected we were using a VPN and would not let us watch their movies without paying for them even as we are prime members. But 1,2,3,4,5 etc were fine as was ITVX bbc iPlayer. We just watched U which was fine. Or use our UK sim for Prime. We spent a long time in Portugal so used Portugal internet which was great and unlimited as Tiekom only allows 200 gb outside of Spain and we are heavy users.

The ExpressVPN app allows you to pick which apps use the VPN -> so you can say dont send Prime/Netflix via it, and it then works better in most places in our experience, as Prime works all over Europe (ditto Netflix).

See if your vpn app has this, it may be in advanced mode (it works well on ExpressVPN). We send ITV, BBC, C4 and C5 (and NowTV) via vpn. Ours also allows us to change where it comes out in UK (5 regions to pick from ) if they block say Manchester, we pick East London, West London etc.

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[MichaelT]

The ExpressVPN app allows you to pick which apps use the VPN -> so you can say dont send Prime/Netflix via it, and it then works better in most places in our experience, as Prime works all over Europe (ditto Netflix).

See if your vpn app has this, it may be in advanced mode (it works well on ExpressVPN). We send ITV, BBC, C4 and C5 (and NowTV) via vpn. Ours also allows us to change where it comes out in UK (5 regions to pick from ) if they block say Manchester, we pick East London, West London etc.

Yes Nord is the same, not used prime here but everything else is good.