Music lovers are very familiar with Pandora, the Internet radio application that allows users to choose from hundreds of music stations. Unfortunately, Pandora content is only available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

Not to worry, though, because a VPN can remove Pandora restrictions in almost every case. We will tell you how to unblock Pandora with a VPN, but first let’s take a brief look at Pandora and what it offers.

The History of Pandora

Pandora can actually be classified as a music recommendation service, providing content based on user’s unique preferences. Pandora also oversees the Music Genome Project.

The service was launched on July 1^st, 2005, the brainchild of Tim Westergren, and immediately became popular due to its interactive nature. Users can choose from a list of genre stations, listen to the stations created by others, or basically let Pandora program their own station based on their listening preferences. The Pandora application is very intuitive; it uses a complex algorithm to identify patterns in the songs chosen by a listener. The software then uses the information it has gleaned to choose what the user will hear in the future.

You could really think of Pandora as SmartRadio, and it has indeed become widely available on Android and iOS devices as well as offered by Dish TV in their satellite television packages. Pandora states that over 200 million people use the service, 70 million of them on a regular basis. A large number of these people are accessing Pandora on a mobile device. Mobile users are limited to 40 hours each month of free content. Subscription packages are offered for those who require more listening time.

In the coming months, Pandora intends to introduce a new interface that will allow users to request a song instantly, and also provide toll free click-to-call ordering of front-row concert tickets. Beginning in September of 2013, Pandora also began to offer on-demand access to the late Kidd Kraddick’s radio program. Kraddick was one of the most popular radio hosts in the US until his untimely death earlier this year.

IP filtering and Pandora

As great as Pandora is, there is one significant drawback to the service. Because of a need to remain compliant with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), Pandora is only served to users in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. The DMCA was created to prevent content from being distributed in areas which are known to be hotbeds of illegal file sharing. The DMCA does help protect artists and guarantee they receive royalties, but the downside is that expats and travelers often find Pandora unavailable when they are away from home.

When the service first launched, Pandora loosely enforced their restrictions by requiring a user to enter a zip code at the time of registration. As a rule, requiring a registration like this can accomplish a certain amount of restriction, but the process is easily circumvented by individuals who simply enter a bogus zip code. Since this method of filtering wasn’t working as well as Pandora hoped, on May 3, 2007, the service began to use IP address filtering to restrict delivery of its content.

Restriction based on IP address is actually used by many services to prevent access from certain geographical locations. Netflix, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer are only available in the US and UK, respectively, and all of them accomplish restriction by IP address filtering.

How you can spoof an IP filter with a VPN and unblock Pandora

The solution to evading an IP filter is pretty simple when you think about it—you need to change your IP address. One of the methods you’ll see suggested in regards to Pandora is using a web-based proxy server. This sounds like a good idea. After all, many proxy servers are free. The person who chooses to use one to stream Pandora will soon find out that proxy servers are insufficient. Most, if not all, of them cannot deliver the speed necessary to stream media.

A VPN account is a much better option than a proxy server, and it comes with a few added benefits. For starters, there is no noticeable difference in connection speed. You will get virtually the same download speed with our VPN as you do with your regular connection. You’ll also benefit from the added security a VPN offers.

You might be wondering if using a VPN to unblock Pandora is a difficult process. Nothing could be easier. Just buy a vpn & configure the US VPN server with the instructions we provide, connect to the Internet, connect to your US-based VPN, and log in to Pandora. That’s all it takes to unblock Pandora in areas outside of the US, Australia, and New Zealand. The technology works because Pandora will identify the VPN server address as your physical location.