Residents of BES islands will get the same internet access rights as their peers in Holland

Weblog NU.nl reports that in the future the residents of the BES islands Bonaire , Statia and Saba will have the same access rights to Internet sites as those in the European Netherlands. Last Wednesday a majority in the Second Chamber  passed a motion requesting the government to find a solution to facilitate this.

Internet connections on the BES islands use Internet IP addresses that differ from Dutch IP addresses. This has the consequence that they are often denied access to certain Dutch content.  For example, images of Dutch sports programs are often limited to viewers in the Netherlands. IP addresses of the BES islands are seen as foreign, although the islands are special municipalities within the Netherlands.

This summer also the DigiD service could not be reached when access to this service was limited  to Dutch IPs during a DDOS attack on the site.

” The residents of the BES islands live in The Netherlands,” said D66 MP Wassila Hachchi who  filed the motion last week . “In particular the residents on the islands would like to make use of this service due to the time difference between the islands and Holland. But as soon as there are certain sports clips are, e.g., in the news,  the broadcast on black. That is not the intention.”

Note SabaNews.nl:

An easy, legal method  exists to avoid this problem. For the cost of $40/year you can get full access to all TV programs available on  the Uitzendinggemist.nl site and, of course, also to all other blocked Dutch internet sites. Given that one never knows when the changes will be made by the government, you may be interested in such a solution on a temporary basis. For more information contact the Webmaster SabaNews.