Forum Discussion
Rapid changes in my Dynamic IP Address
Recently the dynamic public IP address assigned to me by T-Mobile Home Internet service started behaving differently. The IP address (reported by google when doing a google search for “what is my ip address”) changes very rapidly, about once per second, sometimes even faster.
This is very strange. All the dynamic IP addresses I’ve had assigned in the past by other internet service providers (cable, dsl, etc.) did change over time, but the changes were only once or twice per day, not once per second.
The problem with the rapid changes is that some websites detect IP address changes and consider this a security risk. For example if I’m trying to log in to a website, I will enter my username and then enter my password, but when I click “login” button the website will take me immediately back to a blank login page. Or when I try to log in to webmail at my domain hosting provider it will post an error message saying “your IP address has changed...” and won’t let me log in. Again, some websites are sensitive to the rapid IP address changes, others are not.
I did not experience these problems when I first started using T-Mobile Home Internet service (early part of this year) on the specific websites that are currently having problems, so the rapidly changing public/dynamic IP address seems to be a recent issue.
Since my public dynamic IP address is assigned by the T-Mobile system, that’s where the problem exists. It is not a problem with my computers, home network, etc.
I made a screen capture video showing the rapidly changing IP addresses - I hope the T-mobile engineers (I have a support ticket submitted) can view this video to help understand what’s going on. Anyone can view the video, here’s the link:
Demonstration of Rapidly Changing Public IP Address
- nstclairNewbie Caller
Anyone have any updates on this?
Our helpdesk has now been reporting a lot of tickets with people running T-Mobile home internet (specifically in Minneapolis, MN) that are bouncing IPs so often they get booted from just about any corporate authenticated app they are trying to access.
- SGK3Newbie Caller
I would love to hear an update from T-Mobile too. I happen to be one of those users in Minneapolis that works from home and relies on T-Mobile home internet to connect to corporate systems. In the last few weeks I’ve been experienced a significant uptick in issues authenticating and having connections reset, and I’m seeing the same constantly jumping IP issue others have mentioned here.
It’s annoying have to a streaming service boot you for too many “users” or have to re authenticate all the time, but it’s crucial to have a reliable connection to work from. I’d hate to do it, but if it comes down to going back to the office or switching ISPs, I’ll be switching the ISP.
- WarlocWearyTransmission Trainee
I have the same thing going on lately !
IP Changes in minutes / seconds not days !
A short lease of my IP address just started happening to me,
My external IP address is changing once or twice per minute! As you can imagine, this is really inconvenient because many sites check for this and boot the user when their IP address changes mid-session causing the user to login again.This is NOT about having a static IP. Its that the IP is changing as frequently as every few SECONDS. The wreaks havoc with many sign ins as if your IP changes mid-transaction it invalidates the transaction and you CANNOT LOG INTO THINGS YOU NEED TO!
- stratuspeteRoaming Rookie
I’ve had this happen intermittently for a few months now. Restarting the device would fix it, but now I am going on 2 days in this state.
I made a short video showing the public IP address changing every few seconds. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gmk4qpaseopicp/Screen%20Recording%202022-11-10%20at%207.55.06%20AM.mov?dl=0
Symptoms of the problem I have observed are:
- Poor bandwidth
- High Latency
- Some websites log you out immediately after logging in
- Unintelligible , dropped or unable to make VoIP calls
- Pages fail to load
- stratuspeteRoaming Rookie
A quick update, I was about to take the home internet device back to the store, so I connected to my iPhone 13 and ran the same test. The public IP address is constantly changing for it as well.
This has to be a T-Mobile infrastructure problem.
- stratuspeteRoaming Rookie
Additional details
My online backing does not like this either:
- The online bill-pay will not let me initiate any payments when on the T-Mobile 5g. I have to do my banking in the public library.
- I can check me transactions however every time I go in to the portal, I need to fully re-authenticate my device:
- stratuspeteRoaming Rookie
There is an option for a static public IP with T-Mobile Business. I just placed an order for that and will cancel my Home Internet once the Business Internet is up. Hoping for early Monday delivery of the new gateway.
As I said before, for 8 months my Home Internet was mostly fine, but now it is unusable.
Providing a stable IP address should have been part of the design. Mobile IP standards have been around for 20 years. The latest is RFC 3344 in 2010 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3344
Here is a simplified description https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mobile-internet-protocol-or-mobile-ip/
- TangoDeltaDeltaNewbie Caller
Same issue as mentioned above, which just recently started for us, in the Minneapolis area. The IP address (and frequently the location) changes every few seconds.
It wasn’t happening a few weeks ago, but it is now, and it is affecting my ability to do certain work from home activities that I need to do.
Does anyone from T-Mobile monitor these channels? They’re in very serious danger of losing a customer who’s been reasonably happy until now. I’ve also advised several others to try out T-Mobile, but that’s not something I’d dare do again until this is resolved.
- not-a-numberTransmission Trainee
I'm having this same problem. It's especially aggravating to me because I manage a website. Beginning a few days ago, the Cpanel (where you do all the backend stuff for a website's server) for my shared hosting plan started kicking me out every couple of seconds because "your IP address has changed." I also tried using FTP to get to the server, and it also won't let me into my root directory. This is crazy!
My research shows that T-Mobile doesn't really use IPv4. It uses only IPv6 and something called 464XLAT. I won't pretend to understand the concept, but 464XLAT is billed as a way to connect to an IPv4 host over an IPv6 network. I might suppose that part of what it does is produce IPv4 addresses on the fly. Well, something has gone wrong! It shouldn't be giving us new IPv4 addresses every couple of seconds!
T-Mobile, please address this and fix it.
- WarlocWearyTransmission Trainee
Yeap .. something has changed ;( Def was NOT happening now is ..
I hope the guys a T-Mobile read these Comments !
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