Short answer: Philo is an American live-TV service sold in the United States only, and from a Swiss connection it shows an error — even on its free channels. Its help centre is blunt: “Philo is only available when accessed from inside the US or its territories.” What Switzerland does have is a handful of the same brands as local channels: TLC, HGTV and MTV in German, a Swiss Nickelodeon, and, on older lists, French and Italian versions of a few more.
That shapes who this page is for. If the show you want is on a Swiss channel, watch it there, in your language, with a week of replay behind it. Philo matters for the rest: nine of the eighteen networks Philo highlights appear in none of the Swiss channel lists we could read. It also matters for Americans living here and for Swiss families back from the States who want the U.S. feeds.
For anyone in Switzerland, the order is fixed — location first. Philo’s free channels need no account at all, and its plans can only be started from inside the U.S. USip supplies one thing, a residential U.S. IP address, and Philo can still refuse it. Below: the Swiss line-up brand by brand, Swiss replay against Philo’s DVR, the clock, and a check that takes about ten minutes and needs no account.
Philo’s pricing page names eighteen “popular channels”. We checked each name against the Swiss lists we could read on 6 October 2026: Zattoo’s current Swiss line-up, Teleboy’s list of channels with replay advertising, and the most recent Sunrise channel table we could find, valid from 11 October 2021. Swisscom’s channel list did not load outside its interactive pages, so we could not read it, and a “not found” below means not found in these three lists.
| Philo network | Seen in a Swiss list | Language, and where |
|---|---|---|
| TLC | Today | German — “TLC HD” in Zattoo’s Swiss line-up; also among Sunrise’s German channels in 2021 |
| HGTV | Today | German — “HGTV HD” on Zattoo; in 2021 Sunrise also carried “HGTV Italia” in Italian |
| MTV | Today | German — Zattoo lists it as “MTV Germany HD”; Sunrise had “MTV France HD” in French in 2021 |
| Nickelodeon | Today | A Swiss channel — Teleboy lists “7+ / NICK Switzerland”; in 2021 Sunrise also had French Nickelodeon channels |
| Discovery Channel | In 2021 | “Discovery HD” in German, French and Italian on Sunrise; not in Zattoo’s main line-up today |
| HISTORY | In 2021 | “History HD” in German and in Italian on Sunrise |
| BET | In 2021 | French — “BET HD” among Sunrise’s French-language channels |
| VH1 | In 2021 | Italian — “VH1 Italia” on Sunrise |
| A&E | In 2021, inside another name | French — “Planète+ A&E HD” on Sunrise |
| AMC, Hallmark, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, LMN, OWN, TV One, WE tv | Not found | None of these names appears in any of the three lists, in any language |
Two things follow. First, a familiar name on a Swiss remote is a local channel, not a window into the American one. Sunrise files TLC with its German-language channels, and MTV even arrives under the name “MTV Germany”. Second, the strongest case for Philo from Switzerland is the last row: networks such as Hallmark, Lifetime, OWN and WE tv, which no Swiss list we read carries at all.
When you are unsure which group a show falls into, search your Swiss provider’s programme guide and replay first. Finding it there, in German, French or Italian, is the cheapest outcome on this page.
Line-ups change. Sunrise’s table carries the words “Änderungen vorbehalten” — subject to change — and five years have passed since its start date. Read your own provider’s current list before deciding anything; this table is a dated starting point, not a promise.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Philo’s help centre and terms are short on this point and leave little room for interpretation. Here is each line that matters, beside what it means in Basel, Bern or Lausanne.
| Philo’s words | What it means from Switzerland |
|---|---|
| “Philo is only available when accessed from inside the US or its territories.” | Switzerland is outside the area Philo serves — for every tier, the free one included. |
| “If you attempt to sign in to Philo from anywhere else in the world, you’ll see an error message and be prevented from watching Philo.” | The error is the expected result on a Swiss line, not a fault in your settings. |
| The error screen is headed “Philo is only available in the US” | Seeing these words means the location is the problem — not the account, the plan or the device. |
| The terms, dated 3 August 2026: the service is licensed “solely in the United States of America and its territories and commonwealths” | This is the clause a residential U.S. IP runs into. It changes where Philo thinks you are, not where you are. |
| “A Trial Offer is offered to new Philo subscribers only in the 50 United States (and its territories)” | There is no Swiss version of the trial to start. |
Put together, this gives the correct order for anyone in Switzerland: the location comes first and the account, if you want one, second. Philo’s free channels need no account at all — philo.com/free says “No sign-up needed” — and Essential and Bundle+ can only be started from inside the U.S. There is no step where a subscription is set up from here and the location sorted out later.
We print the licence clause next to what our product does on purpose. A residential U.S. IP changes the location Philo reads, and Philo licenses its service for use in the U.S. Its terms also ask users not to “circumvent any security, encryption, authentication, digital rights management, or technical features intended to prevent unauthorized use of our Services”; they do not mention VPNs by name. Read both and decide with them in view — we would rather say this than sell around it.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Philo’s free tier is the cleanest place to start, because it takes the account out of the question. Philo’s page says “No sign-up needed”, and its FAQ answers the account question with “No, you can start watching instantly without an account.” The number of channels is printed two ways on that page — 160+ in one place, 150+ in another — so more than 150 is the safe figure.
Philo names free channels such as Tiny House Nation, Love and Hip Hop, The Walking Dead Universe and AMC Thrillers. All of them sit behind the same location check as Essential and Bundle+, so a Swiss line gets the error here too.
Zattoo’s Swiss service runs its own list of free, advert-funded themed channels — dozens of them, in German and French, from Netzkino to Red Bull TV. None of the Philo free channels named here is on that list.
A free account adds a “30-day DVR (on select titles)” and lets you save shows and favourite channels. Philo also says: “Create up to ten profiles per account.” and “Stream on up to three devices at the same time.”
With no account involved, a free channel that plays — or refuses — answers one question only: does Philo accept the address? That makes it the fairest first check from Switzerland.
Free is about the price, not the place. Philo’s free channels are free to watch in the U.S.; a Swiss connection still gets the location error, account or no account.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Swiss viewers are used to television that waits for them. Swisscom’s blue TV keeps seven days of replay on more than 250 channels; Salt advertises “7 days Replay on 300+ channels”; Zattoo includes seven-day replay in its Premium and Ultimate plans. Philo’s plan pages describe a different tool, a DVR, and the difference matters when American evenings fall in the Swiss night.
| Question | Swiss TV providers | Philo |
|---|---|---|
| Going back | Seven days of replay, already kept for you — 250+ channels at Swisscom, 300+ at Salt | What you saved: a “1-year unlimited DVR” on Essential |
| Keeping | Swisscom keeps recordings for two years; Salt’s Recordings Max keeps them “without time limit” | Up to a year on Essential; a “30-day DVR (on select titles)” on the free channels |
| Recording the past | Swisscom lists recordings “in der Vergangenheit” — from the last seven days | Philo’s pages describe saving shows to the DVR, plus an on-demand library |
SRF reports that CH Media, Seven.One (Sat.1, ProSieben) and RTL Deutschland have shown adverts since 2022 when a replay programme is started, paused or fast-forwarded. Teleboy’s list of the channels concerned includes “7+ / NICK Switzerland”, Nickelodeon’s Swiss channel.
SRF announced in August 2025 that the whole Swiss TV industry would use one replay-advertising model from November 2025. Salt lists RTS 1, RTS 2, SRF 1, SRF 2, SRF info, RSI La 1 and RSI La 2 as joining in 2026, and Teleboy gives 30 March 2026 — so the date depends on whom you ask.
SRF says its own platforms, Play SRF and Play Suisse, stay free of advertising — and so carry none in replay either. Salt and Teleboy offer options that skip the replay adverts on their services.
Salt says “some channels” display the new advertising screens. Of the brands among Philo’s eighteen, only Nickelodeon — through its Swiss channel — is on Teleboy’s list.
What this means for a Philo viewer: in Switzerland, “later” is something the provider has already done for you. Philo’s answers are an on-demand library — “75,000+ on-demand titles”, its pricing page says — and the DVR: save a show, and Essential keeps it for up to a year.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
In 2026 Switzerland moved to summer time on 29 March and returns to winter time on 25 October. New York and Los Angeles moved on 8 March and change back on 1 November. On an ordinary day the U.S. East Coast runs six hours behind Swiss time and the West Coast nine.
| On Philo’s U.S. schedule | On a Swiss clock | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 2 p.m. Eastern | 8 p.m. | The American afternoon fills the Swiss evening |
| 8 p.m. Eastern | 2 a.m., the next day | East Coast prime time, in the Swiss night |
| 10 p.m. Eastern | 4 a.m. | The late East Coast evening |
| 8 p.m. Pacific | 5 a.m. | West Coast prime time, in the early Swiss morning |
| 8 p.m. Eastern, on the evenings of 25–31 October 2026 | 1 a.m. | Europe is on winter time; the U.S. not yet |
| 8 p.m. Eastern, on the evenings of 14–27 March 2027 | 1 a.m. | The U.S. is on summer time; Europe not yet |
Philo’s channels are live in the American sense: they follow U.S. clocks. At a Swiss dinner hour it is early afternoon on the U.S. East Coast, and the evening premieres people talk about happen while Switzerland sleeps. That is what the DVR is for — a “1-year unlimited DVR” on Essential — and why the replay comparison above matters more in Zurich than it would in New York.
Between 25 October and 1 November 2026 every time in the middle column moves one hour earlier, because Europe has left summer time and the U.S. has not.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Philo decides where you are from the public address your request comes from. On a Swisscom, Sunrise or Salt line — or on mobile data anywhere from Geneva to St. Gallen — that address is Swiss, and the answer is the error. What you put in its place decides what Philo sees next.
| What you connect through | What Philo sees | Weak point | Fair use for it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your Swiss line or mobile data | A Swiss address — and, on a line with IPv6, a Swiss IPv6 address as well | Always Switzerland | Swiss TV, Play Suisse, Zattoo and the rest |
| A free VPN app | A few server addresses shared by a great many people | Crowded and unpredictable — and Philo’s first fix is to switch VPNs off | Not a Philo check |
| A data-centre VPN | An address from a hosting company’s range | The right country, but a VPN all the same — the thing Philo’s first fix tells you to switch off | Privacy on station or hotel Wi-Fi |
| USip residential U.S. IP | An ordinary consumer address on a U.S. internet provider | It changes the network layer only — the account, the plan and Philo’s decision stay where they were | One steady U.S. household address to check against |
Philo licenses its service “solely in the United States of America and its territories and commonwealths”. A residential address changes where Philo thinks you are; it does not change that clause.
If the free channel plays, the network part is done. Anything that still fails belongs to the account, the plan or the device.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Philo’s free tier makes this the simplest kind of check: no account, no plan, nothing to cancel afterwards. The steps are ordered so that a failure points to one cause rather than four.
Begin on a laptop, because a browser shows the address, the cookies and Philo’s answer side by side. The Windows guide and the Mac guide cover the setup. With the connection up, an address checker should report the United States on the IPv4 line and either a U.S. address or nothing on the IPv6 line. A Swisscom, Sunrise or Salt name on either line means Philo will still be talking to Switzerland.
A private window starts with no cookies, so nothing Philo decided during an earlier visit from your Swiss line comes along. Go to Philo’s free channels. Philo’s own page says “No sign-up needed” for them: no form, no login, no plan. Whatever happens next can only be about the location.
Pick any free channel and leave it running for sixty seconds. A picture that starts and keeps going means Philo has accepted the address for now. If playback stops, copy the message word for word — Philo’s location error is headed “Philo is only available in the US” — before you touch a single setting.
Once the laptop has played, the Android and iOS guides bring in the phone; the television comes last, through USip’s Smart DNS. A Philo plan is a separate decision, made with Philo’s terms in front of you — the plans section below quotes them.
If a free channel plays and something else later does not, the location part is settled. What is left is the plan, the device or the store, and changing addresses touches none of them.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Philo runs in a browser on Windows and Mac, and as an app on phones, tablets and TVs. In a Swiss home each device adds its own clue about where you are — an app-store country, a Swiss mobile network, an operator’s box — so prove the laptop before anything else. The four videos below were recorded in April 2023, before Philo’s current plans existed: the USip connection steps in them still apply, while Philo’s own screens and plans have changed.
Philo supports Windows 10 and 11 in a supported browser, so no app store is involved — which is why the Swiss check starts here. Swiss TV services such as Zattoo and Teleboy run in the browser too. Keep those in a normal window and open philo.com in a private one (Ctrl+Shift+N in Chrome and Edge, Ctrl+Shift+P in Firefox), so Swiss and American sessions never share cookies. If a Swiss player stops while the U.S. connection is up, disconnect before you blame it.
Step by step: the Windows setup guide.
On a Mac, Philo asks for macOS Ventura or later and a supported browser, so the country of your Swiss Apple Account plays no part — unlike on an iPhone. That makes the Mac a good second witness: the same check in a different browser. If Safari and Chrome disagree on one Mac, compare the IPv6 line in each. It is also a comfortable place to manage the DVR, since the shows you care about air while Switzerland sleeps.
Step by step: the Mac setup guide.
Google Play shows apps according to your Google account’s country, not your network, so a Swiss account decides what you are offered before Philo does. Changing that country affects existing purchases and subscriptions, so make it a separate decision. In the living room, Salt’s new TV box runs Android TV with Google Play, and Philo lists Android TV 7.0 and later among its devices — but the box cannot run the OpenVPN Connect app, so it would need USip’s Smart DNS, and the store-country question applies to it as well.
Step by step: the Android setup guide.
The App Store follows the country of your Apple Account, and Philo’s app needs iOS 18 or later. Out and about, a phone on Swiss mobile data has a Swiss address unless the connection runs on the phone itself — a setup at home does not follow you out of the door — so run the first phone check on home Wi-Fi with the connection running on the phone. Salt also supplies its TV service on an Apple TV 4K, and notes that an Apple ID is not needed for its own app but is needed to download any other — the same account-country question, on the television.
Step by step: the iOS setup guide.
Televisions, streaming sticks and consoles cannot run the OpenVPN Connect app, so USip sets them up with Smart DNS. First register your home’s public IP address with USip; then enter USip’s DNS addresses in the device’s own network settings, or once in the router. If your provider ever changes that public address, register the new one. The Smart DNS guide has every step — leave it until a laptop has played a free channel.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
REAL US HOME BROADBAND
Choose your billing period. US$0 due today.
MONTHLY BILLING
US$15.99US$9.99 / month
Billed monthly after your trial
Then US$9.99 every month
SIX-MONTH BILLING
US$6.50 / month
Monthly equivalent
Then US$39 every 6 months
LOWEST MONTHLY RATE
US$5.75 / month
Monthly equivalent
Then US$69 every year
Included in every plan
US$0 due today. Payment method required. After your trial, your selected plan renews automatically at the price and billing interval shown until canceled. Cancel before the trial ends to avoid the first charge.
All prices in USD. Streaming subscriptions sold separately. 14-day refund policy
One residential U.S. IP — an ordinary consumer address on a U.S. ISP, not a server range. USip and Philo are separate services: the plans include the connection only — not a Philo account, a Philo plan or add-on, an app-store region or the rights to any channel.
Separate services: these prices are for the USip residential U.S. IP service only. A Philo account, a Philo plan and access to any particular channel or title are not included.
Philo’s current line-up of plans dates from 10 March 2026. Here is what each tier offers in Philo’s words, and what each means for someone outside the U.S.
The free tier needs nothing but a U.S. location. A free account adds the “30-day DVR (on select titles)” and saved shows. It is the right place to learn whether Philo accepts your address before anything else.
The cheaper of Philo’s two plans: a “1-year unlimited DVR” and, on the pricing page, “75,000+ on-demand titles”. On the trial, the terms say “A Trial Offer is offered to new Philo subscribers only in the 50 United States (and its territories)”, and the plan itself can only be started from inside the U.S.
Philo’s pricing page lists “Access to HBO Max Basic with Ads plan, AMC+, discovery+, All Reality” on top of Essential. What those services carry, and where, is set by the services themselves.
Philo’s terms: “Other members of your household living at the same address that are at least 18 years old may create profiles connected to your Account.” A relative’s U.S. account is not a Swiss household’s to share, whatever the connection says.
USip supplies the residential U.S. IP connection only — no Philo account, plan, add-on or channel rights. Philo can refuse any address, and its own pages say where it is sold.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Most confusing results come from small things done in the wrong order. These are the ones that matter most on Swiss lines and Swiss hours.
Bring the U.S. connection up and read the address checker before philo.com opens. If Philo sees the Swiss request first, that verdict can linger in cookies; a private window avoids it.
Some home lines carry IPv6 next to IPv4. A U.S. IPv4 address beside a Swiss IPv6 address means Philo may still reach you along the Swiss route, so the IPv6 line must be American or empty.
With U.S. prime time in the Swiss night, save what you want and watch it the next day. Essential comes with a “1-year unlimited DVR,” so a show saved this week is still there next spring.
Switch the U.S. connection off when you go back to Swiss replay, and on again before Philo. Each service then runs on the network you normally use with it.
Office, university and hotel networks set their own rules for outgoing connections. If something plays at home and fails at work, the network is the difference, not Philo.
Hopping between U.S. addresses in the middle of a show makes one account look as if it is moving around the country. Pick one and keep it until you stop watching.
None of these habits makes Philo say yes. They remove the noise, so that when something fails you know which layer failed.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
Answered from Philo’s own pages and terms, the Swiss providers’ channel and replay pages and SRF’s reporting. Where the honest answer depends on something we cannot see, we say what it depends on.
No. Philo is sold in the United States only, and its help centre says so in one line: “Philo is only available when accessed from inside the US or its territories.” No Swiss TV package includes it. What Swiss line-ups do carry are local versions of some of the networks Philo also streams — TLC, HGTV and MTV in German, for example.
The account is not the obstacle: Philo’s FAQ answers “No, you can start watching instantly without an account.” The location is. The free channels sit behind the same check as Essential and Bundle+, so a Swiss connection gets the error. With a U.S. connection, Philo still decides whether to accept the address.
Not from a Swiss connection. Philo’s plans can only be started from inside the U.S., and its terms limit the trial too: “A Trial Offer is offered to new Philo subscribers only in the 50 United States (and its territories).” For anyone in Switzerland, location therefore comes first and the account second.
Some of the brands, as local channels. Zattoo’s Swiss line-up carries TLC, HGTV and “MTV Germany” in German, and Teleboy lists a Swiss Nickelodeon channel. Sunrise’s 2021 list also showed French or Italian versions of BET, Discovery, HISTORY, HGTV and VH1. These are separate channels in local languages, not the U.S. feeds.
No. It carries the same name, but it is a German-language channel — Sunrise files it with its German channels — with its own schedule for German-speaking viewers. Philo streams the American network, in English. If the show you want is in your Swiss provider’s replay, that is the simpler route.
On most days 8 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast is 2 a.m. in Switzerland, and 8 p.m. on the West Coast is 5 a.m. Europe switches clocks on different dates from the U.S., so on the American evenings of 25–31 October 2026 and 14–27 March 2027, 8 p.m. Eastern lands at 1 a.m. instead.
Philo’s plan pages describe two other tools: an on-demand library and a DVR. Essential comes with a “1-year unlimited DVR,” and the free channels with a “30-day DVR (on select titles)” once you create a free account — you save a show and it waits for you. Swiss replay works the other way round: the provider has already kept the last week.
Because the request reached Philo from a Swiss address, and Philo serves only the U.S. and its territories. If you are already using a U.S. connection, look at the IPv6 line of an address checker first, then clear Philo’s cookies or use a private window, and try once more.
It is Philo’s first suggested fix for its location error: “If you are using a VPN on your device, disconnect from it and try again.” From Switzerland, following it literally brings back your Swiss address, which Philo refuses by its own rule. Read it plainly: Philo treats VPN use as a likely cause of its error. A residential U.S. IP is a different kind of address, and Philo can still refuse it.
Philo’s terms link extra profiles to one home: “Other members of your household living at the same address that are at least 18 years old may create profiles connected to your Account.” An account held by relatives in the U.S. belongs to their household, and a flat in Bern is not at their address. Read that clause before borrowing a login.
Not through the operator’s TV service, because Philo is sold in the U.S. only. Philo does list Android TV and Apple TV among its devices — the platforms Salt’s boxes are built on — but the app comes from a store tied to your account’s country, and a TV box cannot run the OpenVPN Connect app. USip sets televisions up with Smart DNS instead.
We have found no Swiss rule that stops a private person from using VPN software, but we have not read a primary Swiss legal source that settles the point, so treat that as an absence of evidence and check locally if your situation depends on it. Philo’s own position is written down: its service is licensed “solely in the United States of America and its territories and commonwealths.”
No. USip supplies a residential U.S. IP address and nothing more. The Philo account, the plan and the rights to every channel are Philo’s, and Philo can refuse any address.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back · Philo subscription not included
The hub carries Philo’s rules, plans and error messages in full. The other European guides share Switzerland’s arithmetic: 8 p.m. in New York is 2 a.m. in Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Stockholm as well, and 1 a.m. in Dublin during the summer.
These are the main pages behind the facts above, read on 6 October 2026: Philo’s own pages for its rules and plans, and the Swiss providers’ and SRF’s pages for line-ups and replay. Philo and the Swiss providers can change plans, channel lists and replay rules without notice, so dates are given where they matter.
Start with what is already on your Swiss remote: if the show is on a local channel, in your language, with a week of replay, that is the whole answer. When it is not — a network with no Swiss channel, or the U.S. feed itself — one careful check tells you more than an evening of guessing: connection up, both address lines read, a private window on a laptop, one free channel, one full minute.
If the free channel plays, the location part is settled and anything still wrong belongs to the plan, the device or the store. If it refuses, the exact wording of Philo’s message is the most useful thing you have, so copy it before you change anything.
USip supplies the residential U.S. IP connection only. Philo accounts, plans and channel rights are Philo’s, and Philo can refuse any address.