AT&T proxing all traffic, devices get same IP?

[SimplyDrew]

Over the last couple of weeks I've been experiencing something a little strange that isn't service impacting, but have realized in the New England area that AT&T appears to be handing out a 198.228.201.x based public IP to my iPhone with a reverse DNS of nycmspsrvz3ts109-dmz.mycingular.net. Previously I was used to getting 166.x based addresses that would change randomly, and the location would never be anywhere near where I was physically with the device.

I'm assuming this has to do with IPv4 preservation considering there's more smartphone/data devices on the network now more than ever, with that number only going up increasingly due to the obvious reasons. A friend of mine that has a Windows phone that I was having dinner with last night and I had the same IP, which ordinarily wouldn't happen, but it appears everything is being proxied in a different way now.

Is anyone else experiencing this in any other market? Just curious.

[Jordan T]

Seems unlikely and you're getting a public IP so that doesn't preserve anything, I get a private IP...

[zephxiii]

Oh this isn't new and is normal. hehe cellphones don't get public IP's for themselves and are usually assigned in the 10.x.x.x range which is private use only. If you think about it, assigning every cell phone a public IP address is just plain crazy and probably impossible (in IPv4), and a waste of a public IP address IMO. We are talking 90 some million devices on just the AT&T network here.

Also when I say this is normal, it is because when you think about it, your own computer doesn't even get a public IP address as it sits on a LAN and is directed to a gateway that does Network Address Translation.

So when you go out to a website like whatismyip.com, it isn't showing your computer's IP, it's showing you the IP of the gateway you connect to the internet through which is your LAN's router typically. In the case of home you only have one gateway IP. In the case of a cellular network with 90 million devices I would imagine AT&T would have to have multiple gateways with multiple IP addresses to handle all the connections (NAT).

[Jordan T]

@zeph, I know that, but the OP is claiming the opposite, that his iPhone *is getting* and *has been getting* a public IP address. Which is just weird, that's a waste and it shouldn't be getting one.

P.S. Nevermind, I read the rest of your post LOL yeah the OP is probably looking at some site like that instead of looking on his iPhone so he thinks he has a public IP when he doesn't.

[zephxiii]

@zeph, I know that, but the OP is claiming the opposite, that his iPhone *is getting* and *has been getting* a public IP address. Which is just weird, that's a waste and it shouldn't be getting one.

P.S. Nevermind, I read the rest of your post LOL yeah the OP is probably looking at some site like that instead of looking on his iPhone so he thinks he has a public IP when he doesn't.

:-) I think i thought that wayyy long ago too and I bet that's what he did too as when use an app on your phone it will tell u the phone's actual IP address which is typically 10.x.x.x private address range.

[zephxiii]

And yes i will also add that at one point in time AT&T phones did come programmed to run through a proxy, but it is something u could easily disable and back in the day on the windows phones they even gave u shortcuts to disable/enable proxy. I don't know if smartphones are still coming with a proxy programmed or not though.

[SimplyDrew]

Oh this isn't new and is normal. hehe cellphones don't get public IP's for themselves and are usually assigned in the 10.x.x.x range which is private use only. If you think about it, assigning every cell phone a public IP address is just plain crazy and probably impossible (in IPv4), and a waste of a public IP address IMO. We are talking 90 some million devices on just the AT&T network here.

Also when I say this is normal, it is because when you think about it, your own computer doesn't even get a public IP address as it sits on a LAN and is directed to a gateway that does Network Address Translation.

So when you go out to a website like whatismyip.com, it isn't showing your computer's IP, it's showing you the IP of the gateway you connect to the internet through which is your LAN's router typically. In the case of home you only have one gateway IP. In the case of a cellular network with 90 million devices I would imagine AT&T would have to have multiple gateways with multiple IP addresses to handle all the connections (NAT).

Ah, makes sense. I was using, and have been using whatismyip.com to look at this. I guess they just switched things around since this is a new IP range and seems that most people in this area are routing through a particular gateway. Previously, two people could be connected to the same site and would get drastically different ranges/IPs, so I was a little thrown. No biggie, just thought it was something new and wondered

[zephxiii]

Ah, makes sense. I was using, and have been using whatismyip.com to look at this. I guess they just switched things around since this is a new IP range and seems that most people in this area are routing through a particular gateway. Previously, two people could be connected to the same site and would get drastically different ranges/IPs, so I was a little thrown. No biggie, just thought it was something new and wondered

I know of 32.164.x.x and 166.x.x.x for wap.cingular gateway.

[SimplyDrew]

I know of 32.164.x.x and 166.x.x.x for wap.cingular gateway.

True, that's a good point. For my iPhone I always seemed t oget 32.164.x.x which showed up as "AT&T Global Network Services" or something of the sort, but all other non-iPhone's would get 166.x.x.x. I guess they're starting to unify everything to a degree. Oh well.