Just last week I watched the Liverpool vs Chelsea match in my apartment in Santiago, and it buffered 3 times mid-game making me miss two goals — I almost threw my PS5 controller out the window. For this massive Arsenal vs Manchester United fixture, I’ve tested every possible pitfall a week in advance, so I can walk you through exactly why you’re facing buffering, and how to fix it for good.
First, figure out the root cause of your buffering before you go messing with your router. I ran 17 tests across different scenarios, and over 80% of the time, the problem isn’t even your Claro or Entel internet, it’s one of two core issues:
The first is a minor local network issue that takes 5 minutes to troubleshoot: Run a speed test for your local Chilean connection first. 1080P 60fps Premier League streams require at least 15Mbps of stable download speed. If you’re getting less than that, plug in an ethernet cable, or switch to your wifi’s 5G band instead of using the combined 2.4G/5G network — 2.4G works better through walls, but it doesn’t have enough bandwidth for high-res streams, and it will lag even for WeChat messages during peak hours. Also, pause any background Netflix downloads, NAS cloud backups or other upload-heavy processes your flatmates might be running before the match: choked upload bandwidth will cause frame drops just as often as slow download speeds.
The second, and most common issue, is copyright restrictions on Chinese streaming platforms and cross-border route congestion. Tencent Sports, iQiyi Sports and other platforms that hold the Chinese commentary rights for the Premier League block overseas IPs by default. Even if you use a regular proxy to get around the restriction, cross-border routes are already congested during peak hours, with millions of domestic Chinese fans crowding the stream in the 10 minutes before kickoff. On top of that, routes from Chile to China often detour through the US first, pushing latency over 400ms and packet loss above 5% — buffering is basically guaranteed. I tested a free proxy before, and by the time I saw Bukayo Saka get the ball on the wing, the fan group I’m in was already spamming celebration messages for the goal. Watching a match that spoiled is completely pointless.
The most reliable solution I’ve tested is QuickFox’s dedicated China sports line. I ran 7 tests during peak hours over 3 days, and when connected to the dedicated Shanghai sports node, latency sits consistently between 190-220ms, with packet loss under 0.3%. I watched full 1080P high-bitrate streams with popular Chinese commentators Jun Zhan and Lu Zhang with zero buffering, even the pre-match sponsor ads ran smoothly. It automatically matches the optimal route for streaming, so you don’t have to manually switch nodes, unlike regular VPNs that often jump to Southeast Asian nodes and double your latency. I installed the QuickFox TV version on my smart TV, and running iQiyi Sports directly on the TV is way more stable than casting from my phone, which used to disconnect constantly due to wifi fluctuations — I tested it for 2 hours straight with no drops.
If you really don’t want to use a dedicated tool, there are alternatives, but the experience is way worse. DirecTV in Chile holds local Premier League rights, and you can watch matches with a 12,900 CLP per month sports package, but it only has Spanish commentary, no Chinese options. For those of us used to the banter and tactical analysis from Chinese commentators, it’s just not the same, and a lot of tactical points are misinterpreted by Spanish speaking pundits. Some people recommend Telegram streaming groups, but I tried those twice: the max quality is 720P, streams get taken down constantly, and they’re filled with pop-up gambling ads. I almost had a very awkward moment when one popped up while I was watching at a friend’s house.
A few big mistakes to avoid: Don’t believe the online tips that say changing to a Chinese public DNS will unlock streams. I tested that, and DNS resolution latency from Chile to China is already extremely high — after changing the DNS I couldn’t open streaming platforms at all, and my local internet speed was cut in half. Don’t use free China VPNs: you can’t even connect during peak hours, and if you do, there’s usually over 30 seconds of latency, so the whole match is spoiled for you. Also, don’t use regular proxies on public wifi to watch matches, it’s a huge security risk. QuickFox’s lines are encrypted, I watched a pre-season match on public wifi at a Starbucks in central Santiago with no buffering and no security issues.
One last pre-match tip: Connect to your chosen line and run a speed test 15 minutes before kickoff. Don’t wait until the whistle blows to connect, that’s when user volume is at its highest, and popular nodes might have a queue. If you have a Tencent Sports premium subscription, log into your account ahead of time too, so you don’t get stuck trying to log in when the authentication server is overloaded.
