Is it possible to get a static IP with the 5G Home Internet service? Normally I wouldn’t need it but since my connection dies at least once a week I get a new IP every time my modem reboots. I work from home and whenever my IP changes I have to update some of my clients’ firewalls.
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I’ve been on the phone with their “tech support” regarding this issue today and several times in the last few weeks regarding intermittent availability of service. I don’t see how hard it would be to simply offer a public IPv4 address even if for a nominal fee.
I’ve been a T-Mobile customer since 2010. I haven’t had much cause for complaint; as a cell carrier their service is relatively accommodating; as an Internet Service Provider, their architecture is frustrating.
DTV says it is a T mobile problem and when I called T Mobile they claim it is a DTV problem, that they need to find a better way to track my location……
Because of my need to access various network services at my home while I’m away, it’s important that I have publicly accessible IPv4 addresses. (I don’t actually care if they’re static or dynamic, but I need durable port forwarding.) So with my Starlink connection, which, like the conventional T-Mobile 5G Home Internet, uses CGNAT and only a public IPv6 address, I need to make sure that individual connection is always VPNed. So I bought a static IPv4 address from my VPN provider so that I could get all the right ports forwarded, and I have a VPN router sitting between my multi-WAN router and my Starlink equipment. My static IP address from my VPN has GeoIP resolution closer to my actual home than my T-Mobile-assigned static IPv4 address.
My multi-WAN router establishes connections over whichever link (Startlink, T-Mobile, etc) is least saturated and has sufficient bandwidth. So sometimes, my video streams to these services go out over the VPNed Starlink connection. (The reason that all outbound connections--and not just inbound connections--need to go over the VPN IP address is related to how my Dynamic DNS client updates my public hostname with the IP address of whatever link is up.)
The irony for me is that Hulu, Disney+, and Netflix all block streams when they detect that I’ve happened to connect to them over the VPNed Starlink connection, all claiming that VPNs obscure my location and violate their terms of service. Reading their terms of service, that’s not actually true, but more to the point, T-Mobile is more severely obscuring my location than my VPN is...not that any of this matters, since there are no content license differences between Colorado and any other state in the US. So I have to find my own workarounds to their violation of their terms of service.
The obvious solution here would be to have their apps on my phone report their location based on GPS, which would give them accurate information to within a few meters at worst, rather than 1000 miles off. And they could even correlate the app on my phone with apps on TVs and such by looking at whether the devices are on the same network. And voilà--you know where your users are without worrying about whether VPNs are obscuring someone’s location.
Ugh. Whatever.
to use IP Passthrough, first change the LAN settings of the Inseego to a subnet not found on your own router. I set my Inseego to 192.168.12.1/24 subnet (because I had the Nokia trashcan before) and my own equipment is on the 192.168.1.1/24 subnet. Once that was set, I then enabled IP Passthrough and I am still able to access the webGUI.
So yes, every segment is on a different subnet. My T-Mobile gateway is on 192.168.20.0/24, and my multi-WAN router is on 192.168.47.0/24. (And behind that, my Ubiquiti networking equipment is on 10.10.32.0/20.)
I have it on good authority from my colleagues who know more about network performance than I do that the fact of additional NATting is a drop in the bucket in terms of added latency compare to the mere fact of there being an additional device needing to forward/route packets at all. So I’m not that fussed about using IP Passthrough, since the DMZ solution works just fine.
That said, I’m curious about your recommendation, since I’m fuzzy on the technical details of network routing:
If I do IP Passthrough, it will assign my public T-Mobile IPv4 address to the WAN port of my ER605 multi-WAN router. So from the ER605’s perspective, that port’s IP address will be that public IPv4 address, not 192.168.20.10 (which I had configured statically to be on the Inseego FX2000’s subnet).
What you’re saying suggests to me that the Inseego FX2000’s 192.168.20.0/24 subnet still somehow remains active, and that its 192.168.20.1 address remains accessible. Is that right?
In this configuration, I totally don’t get what the network configuration is of the Inseego FX2000 and which of its ports have what IP address attached to them.
I’m also confused about how, from a routing tables perspective, traffic to 192.168.20.1 would know to go out over the link whose IP address is 162.191.x.y (my T-Mobile-assigned IPv4 address). As I’m thinking about it, I wonder if that’s a non-issue when there’s only one path, but in my case, since I have 4 WAN links a connection could go over, maybe I have to create a static route on my ER605 that traffic destined to 192.168.20.0/24 needs to have its next hop be over the WAN port that the Inseego FX2000 is connected to.
Thoughts?
none of these give us any trouble as they determine location differently than DTV and Hulu. DTV and Hulu are stupid and have these problems, while almost everyone else does not. also, I was mostly referring to the problems about streaming being throttled on the “business internet”. my experience is not throttled, at all, and faster almost all the way around except for the static ip latency issue.
my “static” IP bounces all over the country, at one point today I was in LA, another in Chicago, another in Delaware and another in Virginia. it’s weird but none of the services we use have a problem.
you could also look at Sling as an alternative if you’re up for that. I don’t believe they have problems like DTV does. it’s very similar content from what I recall.
rinehart
What streaming service do you have? I have Directv Stream. The problem I have is their service allows up to 20 devices on your “home” location and then 2 devices can be logged in when away from home. As soon as my IP changes, my Directv thinks I am away so it only allows 2 devices to be streaming at a time. Which half the time is fine, but some nights with a houshold of 4 (2 teenagers) we want to watch more than 2 devices at a time.
Also, I’m not sure why anyone is seeing that streaming is a problem as my household is constantly streaming and in many cases, multiple streams happening all at the same time. No issues at all and as compared to the Nokia Home Internet device, the performance is quite a bit better. Although, the static IPv4 adds 4 times the latency, this hasn’t impacted really anything at this point. I’ll probably just remove this at some point to get better latency.
I am hoping there is a fix for this. We just switched to Directv stream now that we have good internet. I noticed a month or so ago that the time on my guide was off by an hour, due to the IP address the DTV stream thought I was in another state. Not a big deal but now I have had to reset my “home location” twice this week because the IP has changed, DTV Stream only allows 4 changes per year. DTV says it is a T mobile problem and when I called T Mobile they claim it is a DTV problem, that they need to find a better way to track my location…...
t-mobile small business internet throttles ALL streaming services
WOW...that is just so...wildly unacceptable. I don’t even know what to say.
I probably haven’t noticed because
- I’ve had this all set up for less than a week so far.
- I’m in a rural mountain town, so I’m getting a few tens of Mbps upload/download at most through my T-Mobile connection, even with a high-gain antenna booster pointed directly at the (LTE-only) T-Mobile cell tower that I can see with the naked eye…
- I’m loadbalancing across 4 ISP connections (2x Rise Broadband, 1x Starlink, 1x T-Mobile) using my TP-Link ER605 multi-WAN router, so not all streams go over the T-Mobile connection.
I vaguely recall a flyer plastered to the counter in the T-Mobile store that said something about how they had some commitment to not do anything of the sort, but I didn’t read the verbiage carefully, nor did I snap a photo.
Ugh.
T-Mobile has been quite the unpleasant experience for the last several months of just trying to get into a usable state, and if it weren’t so dirt cheap, I probably would boycott them.
All of this is true ArthurZey, but you failed to mention t-mobile small business internet throttles ALL streaming services, even if the productivity filter is lifted. It took 2 weeks and 3 support tickets to finally get a network engineer to confirm they can't “fix" this. His recommendation was to use my VPN if I needed more than 1.5mbps for streaming, lol.
The ~20-hour ordeal that I had to go through for all this is worth a separate writeup, but yes, you can get a static public IPv4 address on your T-Mobile gateway/router. Here are the requirements:
- Set up a T-Mobile Business Account using a Federal Tax ID Number (also referred to as an “FEIN”). You cannot set up the business account as a sole proprietorship under your social security number (SSN). You’ll have to do this in a physical store.
- Ask your in-store sales rep to add the following add-on to your account:
ZSIPV4MI "Bus Static IPV4 MI $3 Chi"
That is the product code / SKU for a static IPv4 address for an extra $3/month. (There’s a similar one for IPv6, if you need that for some reason.) - Make sure to request an Inseego FX2000 device as your gateway/router. They are unlikely to have these in-store. (I had to do a horrific rigamarole to get one of these by calling Business Sales ahead of having the right kind of business account set up.)
- Call Business Tech Support and request that they finish approving/activating/provisioning your static IPv4 address.
I wish I could give you the direct number, but every time I call what I’m previously told is a direct number, I get bounced around to 4 or 5 reps before getting to someone in the right department. You can try Business Customer Care (allegedly +1-888-310-8369) and then make sure to specifically request Business Technical Support who can help with 5G Home Internet.
9 out of 10 “technical” “support” reps are not going to know anything about IPv4 or IPv6 or static IP addresses or anything. You will likely get a lot of runaround and misinformation. (Do not be fooled by claims about having a “Retail Business Account” versus a “Corporate Business Account” or the line needing to be on some other kind of plan (eg, ZUNLINTTR); these are all irrelevant!) What I found ultimately had to happen was for them to update the APNs associated with my line and then for me to power cycle my Inseego FX2000 gateway for it to pick up the new settings (and then it automatically configured itself with the static IP address, which I was able to find on the administrative configuration website of the router itself).
A few other notes:
- You do not ever need to use the T-Mobile Internet app on a mobile phone, no matter what anybody tells you.
- If you have your own router, it might be tempting to set the Inseego FX2000 to “IP Passthrough” mode (under Settings → Advanced → LAN), so that your own router gets the public IP address (and you avoid being double-NATted), doing so will prevent you from being able to access the Inseego FX2000 configuration website (since it won’t have its own IP address to access via your browser), and you’ll lose access to some useful diagnostic information.
So I recommend against IP Passthrough, instead opting for putting your own router in the Inseego FX2000’s DMZ (under Settings → Advanced → Firewall), and to do so, you’ll probably want to configure your own router to use a static IP address on the Inseego FX200’s LAN subnet.
From a performance perspective, I have it on good authority that the biggest introduction of latency is the mere fact of there being a physical device, rather than the double-NATting itself. Putting your own router in the DMZ should address any of the functional downsides of double-NATting.
I can confirm that with all of the above, I’m able to access internal network services on my private LAN with the appropriate port forwarding set up. For example, I have a machine I SSH into that only has a private LAN address, but when I try to connect to it from outside my network through my T-Mobile static IPv4 address, the Inseego FX2000 forwards all traffic to my own router (which is in its DMZ), which then forwards the specific port to the machine I’m SSHing into.
I call Tmobile the other day, their representative told me their engineers are actively working on a solution to get static IP for tmobile 5G home internet, I dont know if that’s true or not, but I hope we can get static IP soon
Well almost a year has passed and no results. Time to go to Verizon or AT& T
I call Tmobile the other day, their representative told me their engineers are actively working on a solution to get static IP for tmobile 5G home internet, I dont know if that’s true or not, but I hope we can get static IP soon
lol - Checking for a solution to this, came across this post. That is exactly what Tmobile told me as well today. Being as this was 9 months ago, doubt it is happening anytime soon. In other developments, doing research has led me to believe I could sign up for small business static ip. Unfortunately, this does not work at the moment, lol. But they are working on it. I have called repeatedly, and I keep getting read the scripts. I don’t need to hear scripts, I need Internet that allows me to work. This last call, I was polite, and every-time I heard the script, I reiterated my request for a solution. Finally was told there is no solution. Great.
I spoke with Tech Support about 1 and a half months ago on this very issue, and they said their engineers are working on it. I do not get my local channels on my FuboTv app. they change almost daily. I was going to cancel my TMHI, but they offered to suspend my account until they have a fix. Thankfully I didnt cancel my comcrap internet because I thought this might be an issue. (an issue I don’t have with comcrap.) If this cannot be resolved, it’s a deal breaker for me, but I want this to work so badly.
A altternative for work for home withthe staticip problem iS TO USE A PROGRAM LIKE SPLASHTOP OR TEAMVIEWER to Connect to your office computer if your IT will not allow it then your SOL. It will keep the updated iP on the fly and is just a secure as a VPN .
I think static IP will not happen on wireless home internet, and you are all pushing on a rope. The IP address space is finite, Tmobile’s share of addresses is limited, and this service use CGNAT to manage this limited resource.
Most people don’t need a constant static IP address. What they do need is one that doesn’t change that often. Or in my case, starting a few weeks ago, my IP address will flap between at least two different IPs - like when visiting a website. This makes it impossible to use any website that tracks my session using it. It instantly logs me out because my IP address changes on the next request. I am not sure how to stop this - I instead have to tether my t-mobile phone to keep a single IP address.
To Cali Cat
At this point I don’t know how a transition from res to biz would work or even if it is possible with Tmo
The store I’m preparing for is my first biz line from Tmo. If I get any more info I will post it here.
I would kill to only have my T-Mobile internet go down ONLY once a week...I’m averaging NINE (9) drops a day!! I’ve called and called and still there is no resolution! I’m in IT and can’t afford all these drops. Here is something interesting, when the internet drops, so does my phone, and I don’t have it set for using internet calling...maybe I’ll start a thread on that
I use T-Mobile 5G internet at home and I am very pleased with it so far. It has gone out a time or two in the beginning but seems to have been very stable of the last 4-5 months.
Since I was happy with the connection, I asked T-Mobile if the new “Business” 5G Internet came with Statis IP addresses. This is something I need for my stores firewall connection and the NVR for our surveillance cameras. They told me I can order Static IP’s for $5.00 a month per address.
Now I know this thread was on home internet but business internet is also 50.00 a month.
Maybe folks who need Static IP’s for their content services can use a business connection vs residential.
In any event, I’m moving forward with the T-Mobile solution with static IP’s since the DSL circuit I currently have at this store is very slow...too slow.
Good to know! Can a “Business Home Internet” be added to a personal account or does TMO require a new business account for business service?
Thanks JBeck what you describe is the same as what Canadian providers are doing. I too am very pleased with T Mobiles home Internet.
Ed
I use T-Mobile 5G internet at home and I am very pleased with it so far. It has gone out a time or two in the beginning but seems to have been very stable of the last 4-5 months.
Since I was happy with the connection, I asked T-Mobile if the new “Business” 5G Internet came with Statis IP addresses. This is something I need for my stores firewall connection and the NVR for our surveillance cameras. They told me I can order Static IP’s for $5.00 a month per address.
Now I know this thread was on home internet but business internet is also 50.00 a month.
Maybe folks who need Static IP’s for their content services can use a business connection vs residential.
In any event, I’m moving forward with the T-Mobile solution with static IP’s since the DSL circuit I currently have at this store is very slow...too slow.
You can customize your options through the router. I had to do it to get my ps4 to work because it doesn’t like dynamic ip’s… it also will allow you to set up a vpn or whatever else you need to do. Just try a router and custom configure it, you can always return it back to Walmart or Amazon. You configure one router and hook everything up to it including hulu
A router behind the T-mobile device , no matter who makes, will not help unless you can get around the router in the t-mobile device. I have not found a way to do that yet.
If a recycle of the power is all you need there are devices on the market that will test you connection regularly using ping and if no response is found cycle the power. The real need for static IP is to either access the local network remotely or to solve problems with sites like Hula who trying to keep sharing to a minimum.
Ed
Get a NetGear router and u can configure that… works for ps4 connection as well
HI Folks:
T-Mobile will need to provide static ip addresses if their home internet is to be a success. I have used cellular based systems off of both Rogers and Bell Mobility in Canada and early on they offered both a public IP and static ip for a small additional fee. I know that now Bell Mobility only supplies static ip service probably because public will fine if coupled with DDNS service for most purposes will not work for things like Hulu. Keep asking they wil eventually supply it I am sure. As for me I will return my device and revert back to my earlier service. The T-Mobile system works well and I am disappointed to need to do this but I do need a static IP address facing the Internet for all the reasons mentioned above.
Ed
Replying to boost. I work from home and have to cancel T-Mobile home internet because of this issue.
Because T-Mobile doesn’t offer a free antivirus, like any other ISP does, I had to purchase BitDefender, that includes a VPN. Well, the VPN doesn’t work because I requires a FIXED IP address in the computer where it is installed.
When I asked support regarding Fixed IP addresses, I was told that I had to change my membership to Business type, obviously EXTRA-CHARGES, for something other ISP’s provide FREE.
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