Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Questioning the Stability of Static IP Addresses from UK ISPs

Saturday, Nov 12th, 2022 (12:01 am) - Score 9,264
IP Address Illustration

When is a Static IP (Internet Protocol) address, not a Static IP address? The answer to this question should be simple (i.e. when it changes), but a recent consumer complaint against popular broadband ISP Hyperoptic has helped to highlight how the market appears to lack a common position on how to manage them.

First, a bit of background. Every internet connection needs to be assigned an IP address in order to function and communicate with other online servers, but most consumer broadband packages will typically supply you with a Dynamic IP address. A dynamic address is one that will change, such as when you reboot your router. Most people will only ever need a dynamic IP, and in all likelihood you won’t even notice when the address changes.

However, some broadband packages also come with a Static IP address (i.e. the IP address assigned to your internet connection doesn’t change / is permanent), and it’s often also possible to add one to those packages that don’t offer it – for an extra cost.

Advertisement

Static IPs tend to be more associated with premium / business packages, where customers are more likely to desire a fixed address because they’ll be hosting servers and domains, have specific security requirements (e.g. the need to whitelist a specific IP to various firewalls) or want to avoid problems with Carrier Grade NAT (CGN / IP address sharing) etc. Such IPs are leased to the customer (i.e. you don’t physically own the address they assign).

The Problem

In this case one of Hyperoptic’s customers, who wishes to remain anonymous (for the purposes of this article we’ll call him ‘Jim‘), had taken out a normal residential broadband package and was also paying an additional £5 per month on top of that in order to add a Static IP address to the plan.

However, Jim ran into a problem with the provider when, upon replacing his broadband router (this occurred less than a month after the static IP was first assigned), and without any prior notice, they also changed his fixed IP address. The change caused a significant problem as his old IP address was whitelisted on various secure systems which, due to the change, he could no longer access.

Hyperoptic initially responded to the complaint by pledging to resolve the issue (i.e. reinstating the old IP address), but their initial attempt failed as the customer had been moved to a different internal platform during maintenance. After several days, Jim was informed that it would not be possible to reinstate his previous IP.

Advertisement

Upon complaining, Jim was told that Hyperoptic’s “static” IP product is more akin to a “publicly addressable, rarely changed” IP. Arguably, dynamic IPs could also be described as addresses that “rarely change“, since they often stay the same until you disconnect the line (e.g. router reboot) for a period. At this point, Jim decided to raise the case with Hyperoptic’s alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider – Ombudsman Services.

Extract from Jim’s Complaint

“It is my firm belief that, given that Hyperoptic still maintains ownership of the IP addresses, it is NOT impossible for Hyperoptic to assist me in my issue, only time consuming.

I believe that since they advertised the service as a “static” IP, it is their obligation to provide me with an IP address that does not change.

In my experience in the telecoms industry, it is not normal for a communications provider to change someone’s static IP without any advance notice, since of course this can lead to breaking changes.

I have called Hyperoptic on several occasions and had their sales team tell me how a static IP works. On multiple occasions, which I have recorded, their team assured me that static IPs never change. It is for this reason that I requested that the Ombudsman support my complaint by requesting that Hyperoptic reverts the changes which were made so that I may have my old static IP, even if temporarily.”

In its defence, Hyperoptic said their terms allow them to “change the state of the network you are connected on” and, had Jim been on one of their business packages (rather than residential), then they would have notified him of “any details of your network change” during the maintenance. Apparently, paying an extra £5 per month on a residential plan isn’t enough for such a basic customer courtesy to be afforded.

The ISP did initially offer to apply a credit to cover three months’ worth of the static IP service, but Jim declined this in the hope of getting his original IP back. The ombudsman reviewed the case and ultimately ended up siding with Jim, although they could only order the provider to apologise and apply a credit of £75 as a gesture of goodwill.

Statement from Ombudsman Service

Based on the evidence I have received, it is evident that Hyperoptic failed to give you any notice of planned changes with the maintenance in upgrading their services which caused a change to your static IP address. I understand you have requested for this to be placed back to allow you to complete your own personal changes however, due to this being moved to a new system within Hyperoptic it is unable to put your old IP address in place. I recognise that you have experienced shortfalls in service as steps should have been taken to ensure you were made aware of the planned changes to help prevent this impacting your work.

I understand that this has caused difficulty in you accessing websites for work and caused you a lot of inconvenience however, I’m unable to instruct the company to add your old IP address for you as its not feasible for the company to do so. Therefore, I have requested for Hyperoptic to provide you with an apology and to apply a credit of £75 as a gesture of goodwill.

A Hyperoptic spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We apologise again to [our customer] for the inconvenience that was caused. It was necessary for us to make a network update that changed the customer’s IP address – we should have better communicated that to the customer, and helped him manage that change. It is not possible to guarantee that a static IP can be retained indefinitely, but network updates that necessitate changes are extremely rare.”

The case raises an issue that’s definitely worthy of some debate, not least since anybody paying extra for a static IP should at least have a reasonable expectation of receiving an address that doesn’t change and, at the very least, certainly NOT within the first month of service or without any prior notice.

Advertisement

On the other hand, major internet network and platform changes do happen from time to time, which can cause even static addresses to change, although such events are normally very rare and ISPs usually try to protect their assignments to customers when they occur. But at ISPreview.co.uk we’ve always approached the notion of IP addresses being “static” with a pinch of salt, precisely due to the changeable nature of such environments.

However, it’s also true to say that most ISPs do not appear to clearly define either what a Static IP address actually is (within the context of the product’s caveats) or how they may treat it going forward, which is a key point. All of this begs the question, how long does an IP address have to remain unchanged in order for it to truly be advertised as “static” and, if it is liable to change, then can it ever truly be sold as such? More clarity is required from the industry.

Finally, we did quietly ask several other providers how they approached the issue of static addresses. The majority agreed that a static IP address should remain in place for the lifetime of the customer’s service with the ISP, but some also said that it was reasonable to be able to change them, albeit with a long notice period, and they could not guarantee the retention of a specific address (major network shifts do sometimes occur).

If you purchased a broadband package with a static IP address, either included or as a paid add-on, what would your expectations of that address be?

  • The Static IP should be permanent, until you stop using the package / add-on (75%, 581 Votes)
  • The Static IP address can only very rarely change (years, rather than months) (24%, 183 Votes)
  • The Static IP address can change as often as the ISP deems necessary (1%, 10 Votes)
  • Other / Undecided (0%, 3 Votes)

Total Voters: 777

Share with Twitter
Share with Linkedin
Share with Facebook
Share with Reddit
Share with Pinterest
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
58 Responses

Advertisement

  1. Avatar photo JmJohnson says:

    Some ISPs advertise Reserved IPs ie Virgin (note – I moan about VM often but this is one thing they got right).
    In all essence they act like static IPs but come with the disclaimer that network changes may result in a different IP being allocated.

    Static IP – never changes
    Reserved IP – changes once in x years (usually due to network changes)
    Dynamic IP – changes multiple times a year

    It’s common terminology used since at least 10 years ago.
    Not really an excuse for advertising the wrong product.

    1. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      Do you mean Virgin Media consumer or business? On business, they only advertise ‘static IP’ on the VOOM packages – no mention of ‘Reserved’. On consumer, I’ve not seen an alternative to dynamic addresses of any sort advertised, do you have a link to the relevant page?

    2. Avatar photo keeper says:

      Possibly Mark this is also called the “Sticky IP” amongst the Community? I’ve had it too in the past even after a few hours to a day off the router still got the same IP on reconnection.

    3. Avatar photo IPv6 For All says:

      I understand the basis of jims plight and the frustration caused by this unexpected change to his IP which Jim assumed would be permanent for the length of his contract. If i were in Jims shoe’s, my first port of call would be to query/Interrogate the ISP ASN and see/check the IP block Ranges used by the ISP and then use a wide IP range of those used by Hyperoptic to add to the whitelist then narrow the range down, over time accordingly..
      If Jim had the option to whitelist hostnames as well as IPs then perhaps DDNS could have acted as a backup to allow access to secure zones in the unlikely event of a unexpected change to IP address..

      That said its besides the point, Jims expectation was that he paid extra for a static IP as opposed to mearly a “Sticky” IP Im glad to hear jims complaint was agreed with by the ombudsman. This is definitely a topic of interest for myself atm.

    4. Avatar photo JmJohnson says:

      Mark… unfortunately it’s been a while since I reviewed Virgins products.
      One of my offices in Leeds used to have VM (it was the only suitable business package at the time).
      It was advertised as a reserved IP and we were notified of any change months in advance.
      Fortunately, a change only resulted in us needing to change the P1 endpoint config for that site.
      Since then we’ve opened offices in other locations and so that was closed.
      All of our other sites utilise BT so I don’t have a up to date VM product to review.
      They may have changed now.

    5. Avatar photo mrpops2ko says:

      on virgin media ips are generally allocated based upon mac address. so for example i will retain the same ip address through reboots etc (and its probably only largescale network changes on headend that might give me a different one) up until the point i modify the mac address i send to CMTS via DHCP

  2. Avatar photo Michael Paul says:

    Unfortunately it’s true of all static IP addresses. I managed IT for a small company years ago with a leased line service from BTnet and had a /29 block. We had this block for over a year when BT informed us that we’d been misallocated a block that was actually in another customer’s block and we’d be moved and have to update our IP addresses.

    I rejected this immediately stating we’ve had the IP addresses for over a year so clearly that’s either not true or the IP addresses were not used, but they informed me that it was going to change and if I didn’t reconfigure my firewall for the new IP addresses I’d lose connectivity.

    All T&Cs state the IP remains the ISPs property so ultimately unless you’ve got a good legal team drawing up a contract they’ll do that they want unfortunately…

    I monitored those old IP addresses for a while to see who they got allocated to and sure enough it was a much bigger company that BT cared more about keeping happy!

    1. Avatar photo Jay says:

      It’s not true of all static IP addresses at all.
      You do know what the word “all” means right?

      I’ve had the same IP’s (yes, plural) from my provider for over a decade.

      Smaller providers who have been trading long enough that they acquired sufficient (or too many) IPV4 addresses back when RIPE handed them out by the bucket full, can easily ensure a static IP is…. well, static.

      Part of the issue might be Hyperoptic only have a limited number of IPV4 addresses and are likely assigning ranges to specific network infra, meaning they would have to alter/break their standard config to reassign the IP that’s outside this range.

      Not only can my provider guarantee to keep my IP static, they can often give an old IP (or a whole block) back to a returning customer who hasn’t been with them for a number of years.

    2. Avatar photo Rafael Crexci says:

      IP addresses are not owned by the ISPs. They are owned by IANA who delegates them and can revoke them at any time. Then they are redelegated to RIRs (ARIN, RIPE, LACNIC, Afrinic, APNIC), who redelegate to the ISPs and can revoke at any time.
      Back 10 years ago any ISP requesting a larger address block would be requested or even forced to return to the RIR smaller address blocks they had (partially or entirely) before having the extra IPs approved.
      Nowadays there is the IPv4 trade market. Even on those, an ISP doesn’t buy the addresses, but the right to use and announce them over BGP.

  3. Avatar photo Optimist says:

    Does this affect IPV4 addresses only or are IPV6 addresses prone to change also?

    1. Avatar photo Tom says:

      The concept of putting IPv4 literals into remote firewall configurations is and has been for a long time, not the best current practice for securing access to those remote systems.

      Ergo, yes, IPv6 will change, and we shouldn’t care that the IPv4 changes either. I wouldn’t waste my money on ‘static addresses’ in a world of CGNAT/NAT64, particularly when a dial-in VPN is multiple times better suited to these situations.

      The same goes for custom RDNS too, I might add; hosting your own MTA at home is a really bad idea.

  4. Avatar photo Anthony says:

    In my limited experience, I’ve only ever used Virgin and Sky/Now as ISP’s, they use “sticky” IP addressing which means they can change but rarely do. This has been my experience that my v4 IP address has rarely changed. I use a DDNS service anyway so I can access my network remotely when needed.

    1. Avatar photo plunet says:

      Thate fact that you have observed rare changes in your IP address really depends on the available pool of IP addresses in your segment of the ISP network. If the pool is close to capacity then the chance of you getting a different address will be much higher due to churn in the DHCP pool.

      I have seen this with ISPs, you keep the same IP for quite some while, then there is some network reengineering and it’s fast flux frequent changes for a while, calms down again, etc.

    2. Avatar photo GRE4ME says:

      plunet, Virgin Media static IPs come via (get this) a GRE tunnel from Manchester. It’s not got anything to do with any local pool of IPs.

  5. Avatar photo John says:

    If someone pays to keep an IP, having it changed defeats the purpose of paying to keep the IP

    1. Avatar photo Gary says:

      With Hyperoptic, you’re paying for your own IPv4, because otherwise you’re behind CGNAT, unable to forward ports or access services running at home over IPv4.

      They should be calling it a dedicated/unshared IPv4 address, perhaps, rather than static, to avoid confusion/disappointment/the ombudsman rapping their knuckles, and should make it clear that the IP address may change, but whichever IP address you get assigned will be unshared for as long as you’re assigned it.

  6. Avatar photo Alex b says:

    You just rent the IP address, it will never be your unless you buy the blocks of IPs. ICUK never changed any of our IPs in 8 years of partnership. Again you have to choose the right company to work with. All my experiences so far with hyper optic have been related to residential sub par service. Get a proper altnet provider or use open reach with a good ISP on top. Stay away from virginedia, talk talk and hyper optic.

  7. Avatar photo Static Stanley says:

    Let’s walk this through. A static IP (or any IP) is usually provided to you via DHCP. In order to give a static IP, an entry for a MAC address is put into the DHCP server. So they must have deleted the entry in the DHCP server for the customer to lose it. Either that or they set some incredibly long lease times. The actual “administration” is a bit cheeky, ISP charges you every month but doesn’t really have to do anything at all.

    I’ve also experienced this problem on Virgin Media business. We purchased a static IP so that people could VPN in. We had a DNS entry point to it like vpn.mybusiness.com and then one day I got a ton of phone calls, help help, we can’t VPN in. Upon inspection VM had decided to just change the static IP assigned to our modem. Now that was fun, during a lockdown, when you weren’t supposed to travel and I could no longer remotely access our small company servers because of VM. I complained to VM of course, and got some boilerplate copy and paste reply, no apology and no money back. Since that day, we install tailscale / zerotier on everything, and we have a Cloudflare DNS entry that gets automatically updated. Because I don’t trust our ISP not to change the static IP we paid for.

    Oh and just as a lovely aside, ISPs are NOT allowed to charge for IP addresses. It’s right there in the RIPE/ARIN forms you fill in. You cannot charge a customer for it. They all do of course and claim it’s ‘admin’, again admin they don’t have to do, and they don’t hold up their end of the deal.

    For me personally, I have to pay £5 a month to Youfibre for a static IP because CGNAT. I think it’s unfair, but I have no choice if I want port forwarding.

    1. Avatar photo Bon says:

      I have to do the same, though it’s £8/mo for a static IP. In reality it’s not the static part I need as I use DDNS but rather the non-CGNAT aspect of having a static IP and the ability to have port forwarding.

      It’s annoying but £33/mo for 900/900 FTTP can’t be beaten where I live.

    2. Avatar photo Bert says:

      You won’t be getting IPv4 addresses from RIPE anymore, they will only give new applicants a single /24 at most with a waiting list that’s coming up to a year long, and anything else has to be bought at auction. This is why many providers use CGNAT by default. It costs them to provide even a single IPv4 address, so that cost has to be recovered from customers somehow.

      That’s also why you end up with problems like this – a supposedly static address changing. Because IPv4 is so expensive and resource constrained, extreme measures will be taken to conserve them and any wastage avoided. If they need the block containing your static somewhere else, they will move it – and then either change your address, or implement very messy routing/forwarding to pass your address back.

      You’re lucky you can get a static IPv4 at all, in some countries you will be paying hundreds of dollars on top of the standard fees for this.

      Until the whole world moves fully to IPv6, this is only going to get worse and worse.

    3. Avatar photo MrD says:

      Turning off CGNAT and getting a Static IP are different things in my eyes.
      With IPv4 shortages for some ISPs it does seem reasonable that they look to cover cost and effort for those that must use a non-shared v4. My guess is that pricing is near the point where they feel customers will not just bolt on the product for no valid reason.

  8. Avatar photo Vince says:

    Do Hyperoptic’s Terms not expressly state that the IP address can be changed from time if necessary for some reason? I’m amazed if not.

    It is not that uncommon – years ago Be*there had to swap IP addresses for customers, BT has done it to business customers more than once for some of my customers over the years, and we sure as hell don’t offer any customer a Static IP address that is unchangeable.

    It is nonsensical to not be in a position where you can change the IP address you’re only ever “loaning” in effect to a customer. If this was happening regularly sure you could argue it isn’t static really, but once in a blue moon? Should be covered in terms and a non-issue.

    1. Avatar photo Riley says:

      not getting what you pay for is a “non-issue”? ok. There was me thinking if you pay for a static IP you should get a static IP. Not one that changes occasionally.

    2. Avatar photo Vince says:

      You’re not paying for a guaranteed non-changing IP address for life. You’ve decided that’s what was paid for.

    3. Avatar photo Riley says:

      then in that respect, most virgin media IPs are ‘static’ then. Because you can easily hold on to the same IP for months on end. I’ve had the same IP since April and only then because I changed packages.

      Static IP should not change. That’s what you pay for. If there is some major technical issue then they should tell you about it, not just change it, and if they’re somewhat half decent engineers they should attempt to get it back for you, if you still want it.

      You don’t expect your phone number to change. If you specifically pay for an IP that is static, you shouldn’t expect it to change. There are no terms (at least with any of the ISPs that I use) that say you should expect your static IP to change or not be permanently static. If they said that in the t&cs then its up to the customer to decide.

      Imagine if RIPE decided yeah we’re just gonna go ahead and change that block that’s assigned to you that you paid for.

    4. Avatar photo MikeP says:

      Comparing with a phone number and saying “it never changes” is not the best idea…..
      For precisely the same reasons (network reconfiguration and/or regulatory demands) that “static” IPs sometimes have to change, every UK telephone number has changed over the years. Multiple times.
      OK, the less significant digits have generally been unchanged, but nevertheless every change has caused significant disruption. The “best” example is London being divided into 2 dialling code areas and then merged back into one. Half the population never properly understood the second move.
      What the “it should never change” side is looking for is an immutable IP address, not a static IP address. I know of no provider offering that.

    5. Avatar photo dave says:

      I’m guessing few would care if their IP only changes once in 22+ years!

    6. Avatar photo Vince says:

      @Riley – your argument about Virgin Media is flawed because they are not offering a Static IP in the first place. That it happens for operational reasons remain the same for long periods of time doesn’t mean that is what you receive, and if Virgin reconfigured things tomorrow, you’d have no reason to complain. There is zero obligation on them to keep it that way.

      In this case Hyperoptic’s main mistake having skimmed the terms, seems to be they simply didn’t cover off the operational risk and need to have flexibility to shuffle IP Addresses. If they had the customer would have had no real argument either.

  9. Avatar photo Chris Sayers says:

    “Static”
    adjective
    lacking in movement, action, or change, especially in an undesirable or uninteresting way.

    There we have it

    1. Avatar photo Vince says:

      A static caravan can be moved or replaced.

      It doesn’t make it less static.

    2. Avatar photo dave says:

      @Vince: you’re neglecting to acknowledge the different between ‘can’ and ‘should’.

    3. Avatar photo Vince says:

      Not really @dave – there are some good reasons why it might be necessary to change IP Addresses – they won’t be doing it just for the laughs, and frankly whilst it might be a pain to do it, if it’s a one off thing there is barely any point making such a fuss. Better than that then them having to do stupid workarounds that lead to a more unreliable service…

  10. Avatar photo GNewton says:

    I heard of an altnet which claims to offer static IP-addresses, which was only kind of true. It turned out to be a shared static public IP-address, with the customers behind a CGNAT. Kind of beats the very purpose of the static IP-address (e.g. no port-forwarding possible).

    1. Avatar photo Jay says:

      Sounds like you heard wrong or someone was telling you pork pies.
      I’ll guess you aren’t willing to name this Alt-Net.

      CG-NAT IP’s are on a specific range and can be identified as CG-NAT just from looking at them.

      I’ve never in my life (including 17 years as a network engineer) seen anyone advertise CG-NAT as a static IP.
      I’ve also never seen a CG-NAT IP that didn’t change frequently.

  11. Avatar photo Eci user says:

    Had static v4 and v6 with Zen since 2019 no change or issues…they get bit right..

    1. Avatar photo Arthur Chance says:

      I’m with Zen (since 2006) and considering moving their Fibre 900 (CityFibre based) service. They’ve told me my static /29 will have to be replaced by a single, different IPv4 address and that my IPv6 /48 may have to change depending on whether or not they’ve sorted out their software.

  12. Avatar photo Ad47uk says:

    £5 a month just for s static IP is a fair bit, I noticed Zzoomm charges a fiver for a static I.P, while I don’t have a Static I.P I think plusnet charges a one-off fee.

    1. Avatar photo keeper says:

      They do £5 one off

  13. Avatar photo MC says:

    My Static IP with Virgin changed when i started to use my own router instead of their supplied router. It has not changed since. Has “Jim” tried putting the ISP Supplied router back, to see if his old IP returns?

    1. Avatar photo MrD says:

      Virgin Media does not have a static IP option (they did in the past, but if you still get it then your likely on a highly ovepriced legacy package).

      In fact, if you go back in time Cable & Wireless used to require you to “register” a MAC against your account so it could get an IP. That later changed to 3 (Early NTL days) then up to 3 assigned and reserved (Ntl:Telewest, only 1 working at a time tho!) and eventually moved to the system they have now.
      Basically your “sticky” IP comes down to two limits, the IP Pool, and your Lease time. Other than when resegmentation work takes place, the IP Lease time will remain active even if your connection is down. Some ISP’s will flush your IP when your connection/modem/wan goes down. My hardware suggest VM uses a 7 day lease. What I have found however is that once the 7 day lease is gone you still sometimes get the same IP back – IF the IP Pool was not used up and it was not re-assigned to someone new.
      I have also dealth with modems in the past that get the v4 via the configuration files uploaded, so if that’s how Hypteroptic work then simply changing the router will not get a new IP.

    2. Avatar photo Jay says:

      Virgin don’t have static IP’s but rather sticky IP’s.

      If you use your hub in router mode you will get an IP address.
      Change the hub to modem mode with another router and that IP changes.
      Swap back to router mode again and it goes back to the original IP.

      It’s a sticky IP that changes when the authenticating devices MAC address changes.

  14. Avatar photo AT says:

    Some greedy companies out there using Ryanair tactics. Can just, but only just get my head around a one of fee, but £5 a month??

    1. Avatar photo Pip says:

      toob charge £8/mo for a static IP! Needed for port forwarding though as they operate on a cgnat otherwise

    2. Avatar photo Jay says:

      Start your own ISP tomorrow and you’ll have a whole 0 IPV4 addresses to give to your customers.
      It’s why almost all new Alt-Nets have CG-NAT by default.
      They have to buy IPV4 blocks from the open market and they are not cheap.

      If you started your ISP 20 years ago then you could have more IPV4 addresses than you know what to do with.
      IPV4 is exhausted.

      It’s no surprise that Alt-Nets charge a monthly fee for a single IPV4 address.

      The likes of Plusnet can give a static IP for a small one off fee but that just isn’t financially or logistically viable for newer providers.

  15. Avatar photo Jackster says:

    Plusnet back in the day charge me a £5 one off fee for a static and reverse name change.
    Had that IP until we upgraded from ADSL 2+ to VDSL a few years later.

    BT now changes my FTTH IP every few months. But with Cloudflare tunnels and VPNs, one no longer needs white listed static IP.
    Time for some people to update their methods me thinks…

  16. Avatar photo Paul Higgs says:

    It’s disappointing to see such non-inclusive language (whitelist) being used in public articles in 2022 — shame on you.
    The appropriate term is “allow list” or similar.

    1. Avatar photo lol says:

      It has nothing to do with race at all.

    2. Avatar photo André says:

      “Whitelist” is a well established term used in IT for many, many years. It is race-agnostic.
      Please go away.

    3. Avatar photo Jay says:

      Get real, we just this all the time at the company I work in and have as long as I can remember. It’s just like master/slave, it’s normal business language

    4. Avatar photo Right says:

      Vote of support from me given the responses you’ve gotten from people who don’t understand why this is important. Allow list/block list, primary/secondary, etc. If nothing else it’s clearer what it actually means!

    5. Avatar photo dave says:

      People aren’t even black and white, they’re closer to brown and pink.

    6. Avatar photo Jonathan says:

      Noting that blacklist has nothing to do with race either. Wont stop idiots with no knowledge of the language trying to change adjectives in the belief that it will chance perceptions.

  17. Avatar photo Rich says:

    In these days of things like cloudflare zero trust tunnels I’m not sure there is much need for a static ip over a dynamic one for many people, but this is hyperoptic so it’s “static” (should really be “public”) ip vs cgnat so I can see why you’d pay.

  18. Avatar photo Luke Nelson says:

    I’m on a residential Vodafone package. If you ask nicely, they will give you a static IP as a free add-on. This was very helpful for me when working from home as I could whitelist my home IP at work. However, when I upgraded from FTTC to FTTP, my ‘static’ IP changed. When I contacted Vodafone, they eventually they gave the same reason as above, that they are separate networks and the other IP was not available to assign to me. This was frustrating as I had to get permission to go into the office (COVID times) to update the firewalls.

  19. Avatar photo Julian says:

    It’s unfortunate that RIR’s only give a minimum of /24 IP blocks, as few need 256 addresses. However, I’d much prefer a system where I could own my own /29 (8 IPs) and have an ISP provide a BGP tunnel with any ISP peering with my own ASN, even on a residential line.

    1. Avatar photo Vince says:

      @Julian

      The reason for that is simple – that would massively increase the already large size of routing tables – even going to /24 is a big deal and has caught older kit out, so there is no sane chance of your ideal happening.

      Also there is no new v4 space to give anyone. Best to just move to v6.

    2. Avatar photo XGS Is On says:

      100% Vince. A full v4 table is already nearly a million routes. /29 PIs would be insane.

      There’s also the issue of why a broadband ISP would want BGP sessions with random residential users. Administrative nightmare.

  20. Avatar photo Jimmy says:

    It’s not the nerdy “I run my own email server”, like me, years ago, it’s the white listing for access to critical national infrastructure that’s the problem.

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £26.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Brsk UK ISP Logo
Brsk £19.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6024)
  2. BT (3638)
  3. Politics (2720)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2142)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1899)
  10. 4G (1813)
  11. Virgin Media (1762)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1581)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1461)
  15. 5G (1403)
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon