Home Internet Static IP

Estimado/a legendinmyownmind (love the moniker!):

I totally agree.

This is being offered as a “Home Internet” and there are many, many more ‘consumers’ who want/need this service than businesses.   

If there’s a work-around everyone on the forum is waiting for a response.

In my situation, I have six offices, and Comcast is the only provider in many of my service areas.

Comcast=the one we love to hate.

Locations with Verizon FIOS are using Verizon Fios.

I have a work-around for my VPN - not using a fixed IP, but connecting through a ‘named location’ (too much detail for this forum) and it works.

So, I am thankful for T-Mobile as depending on location my speeds are typically 300/100MB/s consistently for $50.00 per month vs. The evil Comcast.

And...as a business owner, from my experience one office location uses less data per month than the ‘typical’ consumer as no streaming downloads, only VOIP and web applicationss.

legendinmyownmind wrote:

You can fix it by picking a business-oriented network.  It's usually a wired connection.

Believe me I would love an alternate service, unfortunately the only other service available to me is satellite, and that can barely be called broadband. I am actually quite happy with TMHI, I routinely see speeds over 100 Mbps now and it continues to increases every month. At this point in 2022, since we have been planning for over 20 years we should be using all v6 networking. T-Mobile could easy accomplish this, especially since they were the first ISP to have a "100% v6" network, accomplished through ample use of 464 tunnels, so not a true v6 network. At this point they just need to drop the tunnels and let everything go real v6. This would solve the CGNAT, tunnel issue and static addressing issue. Seriously people its been 20 years, if you don't have equipment at this point that can handle v6 we shouldn't be held back because of it.

legendinmyownmind wrote:

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.

hanjin66 wrote:

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. Perfecto.

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:

1. Set up a T-Mobile Business Account using a Federal Tax ID Number (also referred to as an “FEIN”). Tú no se puede 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.
2. 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.)
3. 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.)
4. 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 APN 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.

Susiemk10 wrote:

I have Hulu Live and have to chat with them almost every day to reset my IP. They suggested I call T-MOBILE and request a static IP. T-Mobile said can't be done and suggested I get a Netgear router that would solve the problem? Gonna try tomorrow

I doubt thats going to fix the problem, as you still are going to require the gateway INFRONT of the Netgear router. Unless you have a business account with the static IP addon, there is nothing you can do. This is a result of Hulu having an overly restrictive licensing system. They're trying to make sure you don't share your account by tracking what IPs you connect from, and if you connect from too many different IPs it locks you out. This is Hulu demanding to be a square peg in a round hole world, and T-mobile refusing to take a file to its edge.

There's no way to configure a static IP on the gateway. 

@foxhoundvenom I invite you to RTFM and find the setting for configuring static IP on Nokia gateways. Perhaps it's available on the generic Nokia Fastmile, or on other carriers' variants. 

We are also having significant problems without a static IP.  Among other things, I am unable to access my Guild Wars 2 game.  One of the built in "Security Protocols" is that you have to access it from the same IP in order to log in.  So much for that! Every time I reboot the Gateway, they lock me out of my account.

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.

Many of these stories have good reasons to need static addresses, like your work depends on it - wireless home internet is the wrong path for you.  Why would you wait or hope for a change in the design of this residential-consumer network?  

You have a manageable problem.  You can fix it by picking a business-oriented network.  It's usually a wired connection.