Culvert VPNHow to ask for a country your VPN doesn't have yet
Most VPN apps take country requests through a form or a card in the app. Here is how to make one that gets acted on, and why adding a country takes time.
If the country you need is not in your VPN's picker, ask for it through the app rather than a review. Most apps have a request form, a support address or, in Culvert VPN's case, a card on the Premium tab labelled "want a country we don't have?" that records the request. A request with the country name and a sentence on why you need it is enough; the provider counts requests, and the count decides what gets built next.
Why a country is not just a checkbox
It is tempting to assume a VPN can switch on a new country in an afternoon. What a new location actually needs:
- A hosting provider in that country with enough bandwidth that a server full of users does not crawl. A VPN server's limit is almost never memory or CPU; it is the network link, so a cheap host with a thin uplink is worse than no server at all.
- A clean address range. The exit IP is what every website sees. If the range has been used for spam or abuse before, sites will treat everyone behind it with suspicion, and the location will be unpleasant to use.
- Abuse handling. Every exit address will eventually be the subject of a complaint. Someone has to receive it, match it to a session and deal with it, which is the reason a VPN keeps a client IP for a bounded period at all.
- Measured latency. A location is only worth listing if the round trip from the people who would use it is acceptable. The post on how a VPN app picks a server covers why geography alone does not settle this.
- Certificates, keys and monitoring, so the server can be verified by the app and replaced when it fails.
Each of those is routine for a provider that has done it before, but none is instant, and the hosting-provider step can take weeks of testing before a server is good enough to list.
What makes a request useful
A provider deciding between two candidate countries wants to know how many people would use each and what they would use it for. A request that helps:
- Names the country, and the city if you have a preference.
- Says what you would connect to it for: a nearby low-latency server while you travel there, checking how a service behaves from that country, or keeping your traffic private on the local Wi-Fi.
- Says roughly how often: daily, or a two-week trip.
You do not need to include an email, and Culvert VPN's card does not ask for one. The request is recorded against the country, not against you, and counted alongside everyone else's.
What you can do in the meantime
A missing country is rarely a missing capability, because what most people want from a location is one of two things.
Low latency. If you want a server that feels close, the nearest listed country is usually within a few tens of milliseconds. Culvert VPN currently serves Amsterdam, Roubaix, Lauterbourg, Saarbrücken, Limburg, London, Saint Louis, Montreal, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Gdansk, Istanbul, Dubai, Mumbai and Dhaka, and each city row shows the round trip measured from your own phone, so you can pick by number rather than by map. How to choose a location walks through reading that list.
An exit address in that country. Only that country's server gives you that, so if this is the need, the request is the only route, and it is worth making even if it takes a while.
If neither applies and you simply want your traffic off the local network, any location does the job, and the closest one with headroom is the right choice. What server load means explains why the headroom figure matters as much as distance.
What happens after you ask
Requests are aggregated. When a country's count is high enough to justify the work, the provider starts the hosting search, tests candidate servers for bandwidth and address reputation, and adds the city to the picker once it passes. The app does not usually announce it; the country simply appears. If you asked for a country and are on a monthly plan, checking the picker after each app update is a reasonable habit, and monthly versus annual has more on not committing to a year before the locations you need exist.
Requests are also read for the reason, not just the count. A cluster of people asking for the same country because they travel there for work points at a different city choice than a cluster asking because they live there, and the note you add is what makes that visible.
Culvert VPN records country requests through the "want a country we don't have?" card on the Premium tab, with no email and no subscription needed, and the app is on Google Play.
Questions people also ask
Will I be told when the country is added?
Usually not by email, because most requests are recorded without a contact address. New locations appear in the picker, so check it after app updates.
Does requesting a country cost anything or need an account?
No. In Culvert VPN the request card is on the Premium tab, but sending a request needs neither a subscription nor an email.
Why does the app have a country I asked for but not the city I wanted?
A provider opens a city where a hosting provider can offer it good bandwidth and a clean address range, which is not always the biggest city. Any city in the country still gives you an exit address in that country.