Netlify Country Redirects and Edge Functions on a US Carrier Line

Netlify lets you send visitors somewhere else based on their country, run edge functions that read location, split traffic between branches and accept form submissions straight from static HTML. Every one of those features depends on the visitor's address, and your own office address is the one place your rules are least likely to be interesting. HourlyProxies rents you a US carrier line for a couple of hours so you can be the visitor: a phone in Boston, a tablet in Miami, a laptop tethered in Phoenix. From $2, no subscription.

Country redirects, seen from the country

A redirect rule with a country condition is easy to write and easy to get backwards. Load your site through a US mobile line and confirm that a US visitor lands where you intended, that the language or currency version served is the right one, and that the rule does not fire again on the destination page. Then clear cookies and try with a different path, because conditional redirects interact with your other rules in ways that only show from outside.

If the rule also keys on language, set the browser's accepted language the way a US phone would and test again.

Branch deploys give you a safe place to try a changed redirect rule. Push the new rules to a branch, open the branch URL through the line and walk the redirects there before anything reaches production. When the branch behaves, merge and repeat the same walk on the live site, which takes a minute and catches a rule that only applied in one deploy context.

Edge functions and geolocation context

Edge functions receive the visitor's country, subdivision and city alongside the request. Write a tiny function that echoes them, deploy it, and call it through the line. You learn how a real carrier address in Chicago or Houston is classified, which is not always the exact city label, and you can walk through our other cities with a free move to see how the classification shifts.

Functions that do more, such as personalizing a page or gating a feature by region, can then be tested with confidence that the input they receive is realistic.

Forms, split tests and the deploy preview

Submit a Netlify form through the line to confirm the spam filtering accepts a genuine US mobile submission and that your notification arrives. Split testing assigns a branch per visitor with a cookie; a clean browser profile on the line is a fresh visitor, so you can check that both branches are reachable and that the assignment sticks across pages.

Deploy previews and password-protected sites can be opened from the line to prove the protection holds for someone outside your team, and to see how a build renders on a consumer connection at phone width.

The spam filter and site analytics both learn from source addresses, so a handful of labelled test submissions from a carrier line in one city is representative without being noisy. Label each test entry clearly so it is easy to delete from the submissions list once you are done.

The line and the meter

Each line is a real SIM in a 4G or 5G modem we own, in New York, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Miami or North Carolina, on AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon as stock allows. You get HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 endpoints, unlimited data under a fair-use rule, rotation on demand and free city moves. 4G costs $2 for the first two hours and $2 per extra hour; 5G costs $3 and $3; a purchase ends at four hours and never auto-renews. Stay through the day and the paid hours count toward the $5 or $6 day price.

4G usually gives 20 to 45 Mbps and 5G 50 Mbps and up, depending on signal at the modem.

• Redirect rules verified from inside the target country
• Edge geolocation context from a real carrier address
• Forms, split tests and previews checked as a fresh visitor
• Four hours at most, then nothing

Within the rules

Test your own sites. Do not use the line to flood someone else's form, to game a split test with rotation or to pull large assets in bulk. Netlify's acceptable-use policy and ours are both short and both apply.

Setting up a Netlify proxy on HourlyProxies

1. Buy a two-hour 4G or 5G line in the city you want to appear from.
2. Set the proxy in a fresh browser profile and verify the public address.
3. Load the site and follow every country-conditioned redirect.
4. Call your echo edge function and compare the location fields with the city you chose.
5. Submit a test form, check the notification and let the meter stop.

Netlify proxy questions