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.
Home Internet Static IP
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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?
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
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 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.
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 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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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…...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
- 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.
It is better to use IP Passthrough and then just add a new route for the Inseego’s default IP (192.168.1.1) onto the WAN port of your router in your own router’s route table. You add a route 192.168.1.0/24 (192.168.1.1 through 192.168.1.255) and attach it to the WAN port with a gateway of 192.168.1.1. When you type 192.168.1.1 in the browser, you can still access it through the connection.
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?
You are right. In pass-through mode, the router is MOSTLY bridging the WAN to the LAN as a layer-2 network switch. This allows your personal (non-T-Mobile) router to broadcast THROUGH the Inseego, to T-Mobile, a request for an automatic (static or otherwise) IP, and to get that IP.
But then, if your personal router has a public WAN IP (which is assigned a T-Mobile default gateway located in T-Mobile's network center to forward all packets to that are not destined for your home LAN... basically to "the cloud")... then you may wonder why the packets intended FOR your Inseego wouldn't slip through your Inseego, reaching T-Mobile's internet gateway, which in turn would drop the packets just because the destination IP is a private (non-internet-routable) IP?
Remember, I said it is... MOSTLY... a layer-2 switch? Well, it also doubles as a layer-3 IP device attached to (and listening on) that little switch. And it intercepts packets with its own IP as the destination, during passthrough. So even though the packet was being sent to the internet gateway in T-Mobile's building, the router breaks the rule and "opens someone else's mail". It would be like if you were writing a letter to a friend (who happens to work for the post office as a mail carrier) but you put the wrong house address. Normally, it wouldn't make it to the correct recipient, if you put the wrong address on the envelope, but this mail carrier checks every mail piece for his name, and if the name is his, he opens the mail and reads it, instead of delivering it to the house address written on the envelope. This is why he always gets his mail, by virtue of being the delivery middle man, no matter what address you write on the envelope. The Inseego in pass through mode has a rule, "transparently pass all packets between the WAN and LAN ports... UNLESS the destination IP happens to be my IP zof 192.168.1.1 (or whatever it's set to).. I'm going to steal those packets and pluck those out of the stream and not forward those through to the cell tower."
This a joke. How can you call it home internet and have roaming IP addresses. @Tmobile and Hulu need to put your heads together and fix this. I had to have Hulu reset last night and now again today?
It’s been 2 years since I last tested the TM Home Internet 4G Gateway (speed was unreliable so I had to return it). 5G just became available in my area so I called them. I’m confirming as of this date 11/29/22, that Home Internet users do not have a public facing IP, and (after a transfer to their Business team) I’d need a Tax ID in order to get a Static IP. Ironically, this strict rule will be saving me from paying them another $600 per year.
I’ll stick with Spectrum for now as the dynamic IP I get from them is public facing.
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ArthurZey thank you ..
Thank you for the great write up. I was able to set up a business account. Worked with a really nice. Business account manager. Named Leo. He got me all set up. Overnighted the new router. Got me a static IP. Supposedly unlimited data. For $53 a month. And yes, they had to use a FX 2000.
I've had CenturyLink DSL for many years. It only got about 60 to 80. Downloads Depending on the time of day, I'm now getting 350. To 150. And now we have a static IP.I also am using the FX 2000. In bridge mode. And letting my router. Do most of the work. Amazing enough, I didn't even have to set the IP. Or anything in the router it just automatically assigned the new static IP. DNS etcetera.
I can access the web page of the modem. And my router. No problem. using : 192.168.0.1 for the router. and 192.168.1.1 for the modem everything seems to be working great.!
So now I have two modems. Lol. I'll have to send back the consumer grade one. That'll be a fun time.
Userlevel 5
+7
There is a simple workaround to the static IP problem. First, configure the device that you want to have a static address to DHCP and then plug it into your network with the T-Mobile gateway active. After the device is up and running, find the IP address it was assigned. You can do that with the T-Mobile Internet app, iNet, or any of the utilities available for this purpose. You will probably even be able to see the assigned address directly on the device in the settings menu or screen.
Nest, write down the IP address and then reconfigure the device for a static IP. Enter the IP address you just wrote down and restart the device. It will be at the assigned address and should stay there.
Note that this isn't always a permanent solution since the gateway can always reuse that address for another device on the network, but in my experience, this workaround will suffice in most cases, especially for always-on devices like printers.
It is unfortunate that DHCP can't be configured, at least on my Arcadyan KVD21 5G Gateway, but this kludge will at least help. I don't know what the Time To Live (TTL) setting for DHCP is on T-Mobile gateways, but my guess is it's long enough that the above solution will work.
Userlevel 7
+8
If you want to set a local network device to have a static IP address the best course of action is to do so with an address outside of the DHCP scope but still within the IP network. T-Mobile supports 64 clients on the network and my observation based upon the gateway IP delivery via DHCP is that the pool of dynamic addresses runs from 101-254. The gateway IP is excluded so that leaves addresses 2-100 available. If any of these are used for static addressing on the network there should never be any conflict with any client which has received dynamic IP assignment from the gateway DHCP server. It is simple to confirm if a desired IP is available for sure. Open a console and ping the IP you want to use. If you get a response it is in use. If the ping responds as unreachable it is not in use. Just use addresses in the subnet not included as part of the DHCP pool.
ArthurZey and others:
I’m in a dilemma. I activated Small Business Internet in store earlier this week and was given the Sagemcom gateway. The service is great, speeds are beyond expectations and I am ready to cancel Spectrum internet—- if it only wasn’t for the ever-changing IP address. Thanks to your write-up I pretty much know how to go about it, except that no one seems to be able to get me the Inseego gateway. The store doesn’t carry it and insists that I need to return my current gateway first before they can order the Inseego as a replacement. Business Care has no way of ordering it and neither does T-Force (all of them are sending me to the store). I am hesitant to do this only to end up with the paid service but no gateway. Plus there is some (mis?)information out there that the Small Business Internet cannot get the static IP, it needs to be switched to Business Internet by virtue of canceling and re-ordering the service. I am at a loss with so much bad and conflicting information from people who should actually know what they’re talking about.
My questions to you are: how did you swap out your internet gateway? Did you also have to return the old one first? Second, can you confirm that you in fact have the Small Business Internet service and have static IP activated on it?
Many thanks!!
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