Static IP with home internet or business internet?

     The problem isn't that T-Mobile uses DHCP IP addresses.   All the cable companies do the same thing when they provide Internet service.

     The problem is that T-Mobile doesn't have local pools from which the devices can grab their IP addresses.   When I had T-Mobile Home Internet I would get IP addresses that geolocated to Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.   I live in upstate NY.

     I am currently using my local cable company for internet (Spectrum).   My public facing IP geolocates to the town I live in.  And it aways has.

     Without proper geolocation, I have had problems with streaming services thinking I am out of location.  Searching for "restaurants near me" in a browser would bring me to restaurants from all over the country.   Not much help.

     For many of us, geolocation is everything.  I really wanted TMHE to work.   It had great speed, and was cheap.  But without a solution for Geolocation, I returned it within 5 days.   I spent days on the phone with their tech support going from techs that didn't know it was a problem, didn't understand what geolocation even was, or those that claimed there was no solution.  Hours on the phone.

     It's sad.   It could be such a great solution.

Dedicated IP via VPN

After reading this thread, I didn’t bother reaching out to TMobile support, upgrading my home account to business, or any of that.

If you have a VPN service like NordVPN, you can purchase a dedicated IP. With Nord, you have to choose your desired location, typically the nearest major city. This may or may not solve the problem for those that need a dedicated IP for streaming services, but it should certainly solve those that need a dedicated IP for whitelisting for work.

FYI: For everyone looking for advice on this subject.  After speaking to multiple technicians today, opening new business account and going through 19 phone transfers, finally got a hole of an amazing representative from TN.  You must have a business account and get a Inseego Wavemaker 5G indoor cellular router FX3100 that T-Mobile will give you to receive a static IP Address officially from them.  They charge you an extra $3 a month for the static IP Address, which is very comparable.  Thank you so much T-Mobile for finally helping me out after two days of phone calls, and brick and mortar store visits.

It should be a say option for a user to request a Static IP.   Not everyone would need it but also, why are there two streaming services that can’t have another way in determining your location.   YouTube TV does it.   It’s just  Sling TV and Hulu TV require a static IP.    If I was TMobile I would want  to fix it in fear Xfinity starts using this failure in their advertisements.    

I was told by Tmobile tech support that in order to have a static up address, you need to ask Tmobile for an inseego or cradle point router. The gateway routers are not capable of using a static ip address. It was preventing our gateway routers from working. 

RPA wrote:

Are any of you guys using another WiFi Router or Mesh router that then connects to the T-Mobile Gateway via ethernet? Or are you all using the WiFi that the T-Mobile Gateway sends out to connect your devices to it?

I’m using a Unifi stack.

UCG-Ultra, USW-Lite-8-PoE, and a UAP-AC-IW-Pro. 

Are any of you guys using another WiFi Router or Mesh router that then connects to the T-Mobile Gateway via ethernet? Or are you all using the WiFi that the T-Mobile Gateway sends out to connect your devices to it?

Not sure if this has changed but I’ve hade the same IP since 4/10/2024. 

Posting this on 5/1/2024 as a timestamp.

I’m keeping an eye on mine to see if it changes on the next billing cycle….

I’m hoping it doesn’t. I’ve also bounced the modem a few time within the time frame and it picks up the same IP. 

I work from home. My IP has to be whitelisted for me to access work resources. However, my IP keep changing every couple of days requiring me to open a ticket to update my IP.  My IP didn’t change when I had cable internet. T-Mobile should assign a static IP for each home internet connection.

It is my understanding - 1 static IP per SIM.   I hope that answers a lot of questions.