Virgin Media - static or dynamic IP address?

[funkyCable]

Hi

Does virgin media broadband customers have dynamic or static IP addresses? I'm with them and I want to find out if my IP is static or dynamic. I normally connect to the net through a wireless network. how do I find out what type I got. I live in an ex-telewest area.

whats the pros and cons of having either static/dynamic IP address?

[Chris W]

all virgin media residential customers have dynamic ip addresses

[funkyCable]

could i get a static ip??

whats the benefits/differences between the two?

[Chris]

No you can't. Even on their basic business broadband (which is more expensive than the domestic service you have) you aren't guaranteed always to have the same IP address.

A static IP is only useful if you want to host a server at home, but unless you're hosting in a big and serious way there are services out there that will track your IP for you and allow web traffic to be routed to you even if your IP changes.

The benefits of dynamic IP are mostly with the service provider - it means they need to own fewer IP addresses than they have customers. Although this is less the case now so many people have 'always on' broadband instead of dial-up.

If you don't already know this, it's fairly safe to say you don't need to worry about it. ;)

[AbyssUnderground]

Some people call VM's IP's Sticky, in that they are generally associated to you unless something hardware related changed (your MAC address). When this changes, so does the IP. But you can often get the same IP again by changing the MAC back if nobody else has been assigned it.

I had the same IP for 9 months once then network rebalancing made it change.

[ZebUK]

Might be an idea to take a look at DynamicDNS if you need a static IP but if you aren't sure what the pros/cons are between the two then I'd say you have no need for a static IP.

[Matth]

Not very dynamic - unless something forces a change (eg. you change mac address of the connecting device, package speed, or they reconfigure) then you are likely to keep the address for a very long time.

In the short term, you could treat it as static, at least on a basis of organizing a game server for the same day or something.

[granteubbs]

In the short term, you could treat it as static, at least on a basis of organizing a game server for the same day or something.