Captive newtorks abroad woes

[Dave]

Evening all,
I’m wishing to seek to advise from some IT gurus who could possibly help on the following subject. Back in the day I used to know a fair bit about IT but have not practiced anything since about 2008 since I got into mech engineering.
 
The goal:
I currently live in Australia in an apartment block, and I am really wanting to use my Apple TV gen 4 with the BBC iPlayer app in order to watch UK tv from here in Australia – me and my missus just really craving good on-demand TV at the moment. We could download/torrent etc but its not convenient at all, especially when I’m not there.
 
The issues I can identify at the moment:
 
1.   The apartment block has a ‘captive network’ – meaning all devices connect to an open WiFi, and then login through a browser portal to allow the device to access the net.
2.   I’m not in the UK
 
Problem 1: The captive network;
In order to get onto the captive network (similar to hotels, free public wifi’s etc) you connect to the open wifi network, and then I have to login with a username/password on a browser portal, internet is then granted and limitless for the device that has logged onto the website browser portal (IT registers your MAC address as good to go), which up until now has been great for everything apart from the Apply TV.
 
The solution I have for this is, I emulate the Apple TV MAC address onto an old laptop, logon to the wifi network portal on the laptop, and login with username/password. Once this is done I remove the laptop from the network and then Apple TV’s MAC address is now granted access to the net (Apple TV does not have a browser to login to the portal).
 
Problem 2: I’m not in the UK,
I have a current VPN which allows iPlayer etc on my phone, laptop, and has allowed me to use torrents freely for anywhere.
I cannot figure out a way to use the VPN with the captive network. I have tried using a DNS on the Apple TV which has worked for my brother outsite of the uk (Although he is not on a captive network, so this is much much simpler, as he found out)
 
Potential solutions(?)
 
·        Someone correct me and tell me that it can be done with both the captive network and VPN/DNS, I’m just being an idiot and just not setting it up right (would like this scenario, in which case would go and eagerly research some more)
·        Get a router which you can assign a MAC address, do as listed above to activate it on the network, and then have all my devices connect to this with simple WPA password (none of this portal browser bullshit, but not sure if this would allow the DNS to work), and also not sure if networks work like that??
·        Get another laptop, and configure the laptop to the portal, and have all traffic routed through the laptop, to allow the laptop to control/manage traffic through VPN/DNS (again not sure if networks work like that???)
 
I put this out to any IT gurus out there, and hopefully I can offer some simple inferior XUD knowledge in return
 
Cheers all

[tigerstyle]

Kodi.

[r3k1355]

·        Get a router which you can assign a MAC address, do as listed above to activate it on the network, and then have all my devices connect to this with simple WPA password (none of this portal browser bullshit, but not sure if this would allow the DNS to work), and also not sure if networks work like that??

Do you know if the network access is time limited?

It's usually something like a day, after which you need to login in again.
It would make the above option abit of an arsehole.

[Danny Wideboy]

Can't believe nobody has mentioned bigger hammers yet.
Always bigger hammers.

[Dave]

·        Get a router which you can assign a MAC address, do as listed above to activate it on the network, and then have all my devices connect to this with simple WPA password (none of this portal browser bullshit, but not sure if this would allow the DNS to work), and also not sure if networks work like that??

Do you know if the network access is time limited?

It's usually something like a day, after which you need to login in again.
It would make the above option abit of an arsehole.

It is time limited, but the duration is 4 weeks, so would not be too much of an issue.

[r3k1355]

4 Weeks is pretty good.

What about:

Apartment Network->Server (yours)->all your other shit.

Just sling a server in and have it act as proxy, so instead of connecting all your devices to the network just connect it all to one small server and then do the 4-week connection on that??

[Dave]

4 Weeks is pretty good.

What about:

Apartment Network->Server (yours)->all your other shit.

Just sling a server in and have it act as proxy, so instead of connecting all your devices to the network just connect it all to one small server and then do the 4-week connection on that??

Yes!! this is exactly what I was thinking, but I wasnt sure if that would work, but I presume as your suggesting it you know more about it than me so should work

[r3k1355]

Well not really, but properly configured it should be fine as the Apartment Network will only see traffic from one machine.

You might run into issues if the network uses some kind of traffic policy though?
You won't know that till you give it a try though.