So I had a few questions about port-forwarding that I got answered here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskTechnology/comments/vlb293/how_do_i_port_forward/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
but these answers lead me to new questions.
Who gets to give me a static IP? How can I assign a static IP to myself?
Why won’t my ISP give me a static IP for free?
And most of all, who decides your IP address?
If I do need to make my own ISP, how? I tried to figure it out, but no one really gave a DIY tutorial whilst doing it themselves. Now I just know a little bit of theory like,
- ISP’s get their internet from other ISP’s
- You need to lay cables
But that’s it.
Thank you in advance!
edit: The reason something like this has come up is because my router is in CG-NAT network.
edit 2: Even the answer to 1 of my doubts would be a huge help 
edit 3: I am in India
No-IP will give you a free ddns.net address, all you have to do is confirm you exist every month. I did it for years until i paid for their 10 year plan.
From an ISPs POV a static IP is trouble, it means you want to use your connection for more than surfing or watching Netflix and use your more limited upload bandwidth. Additionally those are the customers liable to get hacked and start ‘hosting warze’ or causing other problems
That In the UK Zen Internet offer free Statics they cost a little mire but are generally awesome as an ISP
Down under, my ISP gave me a static ip for free when my account was registered under my sole trader business. The plan I had was the same as the personal account, so same price and services nothing extra. But it was free.
Who gets to give me a static IP? How can I assign a static IP to myself?
Your ISP can give you a static IP. You can’t assign one to yourself (unless you are your own ISP)
Why won’t my ISP give me a static IP for free?
There are a few reasons.
- Firstly it has a cost for them to do so as it reduces the number of IPs they have available to allocate as needed.
- Secondly it’s unusual for a residential customer to need a static IP, that would normally be something for a business customer, so there’s also a potential loss of income there for the ISP as well.
- Thirdly, the most likely reason(s) for wanting a static IP are for things that are likely against the ISPs ToS for a residential customer. A price barrier helps reduce cases of this happening.
Almost all valid (i.e. not against ToS) reasons for wanting a static IP on a residential account can be satisfied in other ways these days, such as with DDNS, VPNs or reverse proxies.
And most of all, who decides your IP address?
For a dynamic IP address, it’s picked automatically from a pool of IP addresses that the ISP owns. For a static IP address it might be the same, or it might be that a member of the ISP staff randomly plucks one from the pool and assigns it to you.
To be your own ISP and give yourself your own public IP address you would likely need a contract with a tier 1 provider (only going to speak to you of you have a solid business plan to resell to your own customers, your own data center with a lot of networking equipment, several employees to manage technical, data protection and legal sides of the business, permits from local government to rip up roads and lay cables, contracts with companies dig the roads and to lay the cables.
Even after all that, you would still need to purchase a block of publicly routable IP addresses. As far as I know they are all under some form of ownership so they go to the highest bidder from any large scale company willing to sell them.
So you’re looking at a good few million in investment and a couple of years of work just for you to end up with 1 IP address.
Your only viable option is via your ISP. If they don’t offer one for free, then you will need to pay their price. Otherwise switch ISP to one that does offer it if possible.
Another option (that still costs money) would be to rent a virtual private server (VPS) in the cloud. One should come with its own public IP address. You would then setup a vpn server or other proxy server on that VPS.
If you only need the public IP address for a PC or Mac then connecting to it should be easy enough with the right software. If you need it for a games console then you will need your router to be compatible with connecting to a VPN/proxy so it sends your whole networks data via the VPS you are renting.
This however would introduce more latency, due to encryption/decryption
If you’re just looking to do something simple like host a game server on your pc the easiest option is port forwarding with upnp if your router has it. This eliminates any fuckery with networking, all you have to do is enable it in your router and use a software that can open ports via upnp, i personally use portmapper.
It also reduces their pool of dynamically assigned addresses, which is starting to become a problem with ipv4
This is really helpful! Thank you.
I have one question though…
“Your ISP can give you a static IP. You can’t assign one to yourself (unless you are your own ISP)”
How can I be my own ISP?
How can I be my own ISP?
I don’t really know, and I’m sure it depends on where you live. I am pretty sure it will be very expensive both to setup and maintain though.
If none of the alternatives to static IP work for your case (which would surprise me), it would likely be far cheaper to pay for a static IP on your account, or upgrade to a business account than it would to become your own ISP.
