Is anyone else having problems with a changing IP address?

Just took some additional data on the problem,  very interesting…

When I disconnect my PC from my home network (internet provided by T-Mobile Home Internet) and instead connect it to my T-Mobile 5G mobile phone’s hotspot - the same rapid IP address changes occur (in my dynamic Public IP address).

However I also have a T-Mobile 4G LTE mobile hotspot.  When I connect my PC to it,  the IP address does not change - it remains stable (at least for the several minutes I tested...).

So this problem seems related to devices connected to T-Mobile’s 5G service.

One more piece of data - I verified that when connected to the internet through my VPN service (using T-Mobile Home Internet),  my public IP address is stable - also the VPN service doesn’t seem bothered by the rapidly changing IP addresses in the T-Mobile system.

I finally suffered through an hour-long call with T-Mobile.  They said there is no fix.  Our T-Mobile Home Internet routers jump back and forth between towers like a phone.  There will never be a fix, she said.

I asked why the problem just started for me a month ago.  She said the IP situation has always been like this but websites recently started cracking down due to security concerns.

She said Google Mesh might solve it.  I can't understand why that would be.  I'm not throwing more money at this.  

So I have paid services that lock me out because they think I'm sharing my account.  I have bank transactions that don't go through, so I get past due notices.  I have sites I need to access for work that lock me out because they say the IP that requested the data is no longer the IP they're detecting.

MitchNC wrote:

I finally suffered through an hour-long call with T-Mobile.  They said there is no fix.  Our T-Mobile Home Internet routers jump back and forth between towers like a phone.  There will never be a fix, she said.

I asked why the problem just started for me a month ago.  She said the IP situation has always been like this but websites recently started cracking down due to security concerns.

 

As you know, their answer is not accurate.  I've had this service for almost 2yrs now and this problem only recently started.  I know prior to this that it held the IP for several days, even months, so long as you didn't reboot.  I can deal with the IP location always being states away, that's just an annoying.  This however, makes the service unusable for the work I must do from home as I can't complete authentications without the IP changing in the middle.  This is not normal behavior and sites see this as a possible security event (think man in the middle attack).

The support I talked to also tried to pass this off as normal.  They seem to now have a shared response to provide us.  They did let on something about "bands" and tower saturation being involved.  My guess is another poster is on to something that the change to 5G towers and infrastructure, along with more people, is contributing to T-mobile now having an architecture that is unable to manage the demand.

Btw, their recommendation for a google mesh router will not fix this problem unless that router is configured to utilize a VPN service that can stabilize your public side IP address.  You have to pay extra for that and adding a VPN overlay network on top can add additional latency, causing other problems.

This is a horrible development in an otherwise good service - especially for those of us in rural areas with no options.

t-mobile loves to blame this as normal dynamic IP address assignment which it is NOT.   The IP address of traffic leaving your gateway (house) is NOT really changing (well it is changing as often as it normally does with dynamic ip assignment, which is rarely).  

As evidence, if your gateway IP address changes, every existing connection will be terminated.  Downloads, video streams, chat connections, etc.  this is not happening.  

What is happening is that a device within t-mobile is doing NAT (network address translation) and using a different source address for every new connection to a different destination IP address.  IT SHOULD NOT BE DOING THIS as it causes problems like this, especially with cloud based servers where the a given DNS host name has multiple IP addresses. The NAT device needs to disregard the destination address in it's NAT lookup for new connection attempts.  

This is best demonstrated using a phone (which has the same problem on t-mobile as the gateways)… But the phone allows you to see the IP addresses assigned to your device.   Using your phones web browser, go to a website which reports your IP address… note that it DOES NOT match your phones IP address.  This is because of the translation that is taking place.  Note you may have two IP addresses assigned and IPV6 address and an IPV4 address.

There is another way of demonstrating this problem using multiple sites that report IP address of your connection, but that is less reliable.

This is an internal practice of t-mobile that appears to be related the Minneapolis Geography and breaks internet conventions and assumptions used by many servers.  Maybe someday somebody will get high enough up into the t-mobile engineering team to reach somebody who understand the technology and equipment that they use and correct the issue.

Mike

I work from home and recently switched because my cable internet was constantly going down. I tried both for a month before solely going with T-Mobile, and as soon as I cancel the cable internet, I start having this problem. My IT department at work is tired of fixing my connection issues as I keep getting booted due to the IP address constantly switching. Is there a fix for this on T-Mobile's end that stops this from happening?

I have the same problem with the changing IP that I’ve touched on in my main thread.

Usually I only got a new IP when my device rebooted.  But I recently had my IP change without a reboot so I'm going to keep an eye on that to see how often it happens or if it was a fluke.  As for the location I don't think it's reliable at this point in time.  I'm in Kansas but anything that uses geolocation by IP thinks I'm in Texas.  That's for T-Mobile to fix and I don't know if they ever will.

I'm having issues with my IP constantly changing as well.  I get the same added verification requirements as noted above.  At work I have to give our IT person my IP address for him to enter into the backend of our system so when I try to login it will see my IP address is already on the "guest list" and then grant me access.  Every time the power goes out or I have to reboot the tower it changes.  I'm starting to really feel back having to ask him to yet again enter in my new IP address.  I would really like to know if there is a IP range they are using for my area so I can provide that to my IT person keeping him from having to manually enter in each new IP address - very annoying. 

The XLAT464 implementaton they used for dual-stack IPV4/V6 support on their IPV6 only network functions in some ways like a VPN ser vb ices

Short lease times, and each time you reconnect the public IP can change--and it may even be shared with more than one client as well, which can make it behave somewhat like CGNAT as well.

Some issues might be resolved via IPv6 passthrough with a dedicated router (provided the applications/devices are IPv6 capable/aware), or a VPN service.  YMMV depending on what options are available, but about the only things available for most peopleuntil TMO changes things in layers above the modem.

There's an easy way to fix this. Unplug the gateway, then tap the reset port on the back with a push pin or paper clip. Slide the power switch off then on for good measure. When the top 3 lights are out and the front light is reddish, plug the power back in. When all the lights are green, the gateway should be reoriented to your local area.

I am having the same problem with the IP address changing periodically.  This is causing my streaming service to think I am in Kansas or San Antonio rather than Austin and the local channels reset.   A router reset seems to fix it temporarily.