How and Why All Devices in Your Home Share One IP Address
If you’re like most people, your Internet service provider hands you a single Internet Protocol address and your router shares it amongst all the connected devices in your home.
This actually violates the end-to-end principle, which the Internet was designed around. However, there are only so many IP addresses to go around – we’re running out.
Public IP Addresses Are a Limited Resource
There are less than 4. 2 billion available IPv4 IP addresses. In other words, there are more connected devices on the planet than there are unique, public IP addresses for them. The Internet is running out of IPv4 addresses, even though we’re rationing them.
Rather than your Internet service provider assigning a unique public IP address to each device in your home – you would need an additional IP address every time you bought a new computer, tablet, smartphone, game console, or anything else – your ISP generally assigns you a single IP address.
Public vs. Private IP Addresses
Your router is connected directly to the Internet, and it’s assigned your public IP address (which may change over time). Your router is then responsible for sharing your public IP address among the other computers and connected devices in your home.
Your router assigns local IP addresses to your connected devices. This allows them to communicate amongst each other behind your router in your home. However, these local IP addresses aren’t reachable from the Internet. In other words, your public IP address might be something like 23. 24. 35. 63. Anyone on the Internet can try to connect to this address, and they’d reach your router. Your computer’s private IP address might be something like 192. 168. 1. 100. When someone on the Internet tries to connect to this address, their computer will look for the address 192. 100 on their local network.
If this is a bit confusing, try thinking about an office building. The office building’s address may be 500 Fake Street, Fake Town, USA. Anyone can send mail to this address from anywhere in the world – this address is equivalent to a public address. An office in the office building might be “Room 203. ” Like local IP addresses, “Room 203” isn’t a globally unique address – it’s used in many office buildings. You can’t address mail directly to Room 203 if you live on the other side of the world. You have to address mail to the office building itself.
Network Address Translation (NAT) & Port Forwarding
When you connect to something on the Internet – a website, for example – your computer sends the packets through your router. Your router modifies packets and assigns a unique port to each outgoing connection on the router. When the website or other server sends data back to you, it sends the data back to that specific port, and your router knows it should send the data back to the same device that initiated the original connection. This is how routers handle Internet traffic for multiple computers at once using a single IP address and knows where all the traffic should go.
However, this can break down when dealing with unrequested incoming traffic. For example, if someone tries to connect to your router’s IP address on their own accord, your router has no idea where it should send that traffic. All your router can do is take the traffic and discard it. This essentially means that your router acts as a sort of firewall, discarding unrequested inbound traffic.
If you want to receive this incoming traffic, you can set up port forwarding on your router. For example, you could tell your router that you’re running a Minecraft server on port 25565 at a specific local IP address. When your router receives a connection on port 25565, it knows it should pass that traffic through to the local IP address you specified. This is why port forwarding is necessary for applications that function as servers and receive unrequested inbound traffic from outside your local network.
Two Possible Futures
As we mentioned above, we’re running out of IPv4 IP addresses in spite of the rationing. In the long term, every device will hopefully have its own IP address. In the short term, you may not even have a single public IP address of your own.
IPv6 Addresses for Each Device: IPv4 has less than 4. 2 billion addresses, but IPv6 can offer 2128 possible IP addresses. Wolfram Alpha can help us put this huge number in perspective: That’s 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 different IP addresses, or about 50100000000000000000000000000 unique IP addresses for every person on the planet. Once IPv6 becomes more widespread and replaces IPv4, we could assign each connected device a unique IP address on the Internet.
Carrier-Grade NAT: In the short term, some ISPs are struggling to provide IPv4 addresses to their customers. Carrier-grade NAT is a proposed solution some ISPs are looking into. An ISP using carrier-grade NAT would keep its public IP addresses for itself. It would use NAT (like your home router does) to hand out local IP addresses to all its customers. Customers wouldn’t have a unique public IP address of their own on the Internet and wouldn’t be able to use server software that requires port forwarding or direct connections.
The Internet was never designed for so many connected devices, and home routers with NAT technologies are the only reason we can connect so many devices without migrating to IPv6.
Image Credit: Matt J Newman on Flickr, Bob Mical on Flickr, webhamster on Flickr, Jemimus on Flickr
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How to find your Android device IP address
The device IP address is a unique IP address that is assigned to devices that are connected on a network.
While the steps below were tried on an Android 6. 0 (Marshmallow) device, they are generally the same on all versions of Android devices. 1) Open your Settings menu and tap on About
2) Tap on Status
3) You should now see the general information of your device, including the IP address.
In this example, the Android device IP address is 192. 168. 2. 125 If you are having any queries or require any assistance, please do not hesitate to email us at and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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Last updated on January 1, 2021
How to Fix a “Failed to Obtain IP Address” Android Error – Lifewire
When you’re trying to get on a Wi-Fi network or use the internet with your mobile, the last thing you want to see is the “Failed to Obtain IP Address” on your Android device.
This error usually appears when you’re attempting to connect to any Wi-Fi network, even if it’s your home network. What it means is that the router that manages the network can’t get an IP address for your Android device.
This issue not only prevents you from using that network to access the internet, but you also can’t access any other network resources like printers, wireless displays, or streaming devices.
The directions below generally apply to any Android phone regardless of brand, including: Samsung, Google, LG, Motorola, and more. Each device may have slightly different menu options, however. You’ll find any significant differences noted.
Cause of “Failed to Obtain IP Address” Android Error
There are many reasons you may see this error on your Android device when you try to connect to a network. The most common source of the error is a router issue. Either your device was intentionally blocked, or the connection problem is due to a router problem.
It’s also possible that your Android’s own network hardware or software is malfunctioning or corrupt. You can walk through the steps below to troubleshoot, starting from the most likely causes to the least likely scenario.
How to Fix “Failed to Obtain IP Address” Android Error
Since the router is usually the most common issue with this error, the troubleshooting should start there. Once you’ve confirmed the router isn’t the issue, you can move on to troubleshooting your own Android device.
If you’re on someone else’s network, ask them to remove the MAC filter for your device. They should also confirm there aren’t any parental controls set up to block your device from accessing the internet. If the network and router is yours, then connect to your router as an administrator and make sure both of those features are turned off for your Android device.
If you’re seeing this error while trying to connect to a corporate Wi-Fi network, it’s likely that you need IT approval before you can use the wireless network. If it’s a public Wi-Fi hotspot like at a coffee shop, then the router is most likely not the cause of this error.
Make sure your router’s built-in firewall isn’t inadvertently causing issues. If you aren’t the only person experiencing the “Failed to Obtain IP Address” error, there’s a chance that someone either recently enabled or changed the wireless router’s built-in firewall. It’s also possible the firewall software stopped working properly. Try checking whether the router firewall is enabled, and test disabling it to see if that resolves the error.
Change your router’s network encryption. If the router is currently configured to use AES or TKIP encryption, those encryption types are known to cause problems with certain devices. changing network encryption to WPA2-PSK often resolves those issues.
Restart the router. If everything on the router checks out fine, restarting it will re-initialize the internal software and clear any potential cache issues. If rebooting doesn’t work and multiple people are still seeing the same error when connecting to the wireless network, it may be time to reset the router instead.
Keep in mind that resetting a router also resets all of the customized settings that were made after the router was first installed. Before resetting, make sure to make a note of all settings that were customized so that after the reset you can go back in and customize those settings the way you want.
Check if your Android phone is the problem. If you’ve tried all of the router options above and you’re still seeing the “Failed to Obtain IP Address” error on your Android, it’s time to start looking into troubleshooting your Android device. The first thing you should try is having your Android forget the network connection, which acts as a reset. Once this is finished, you can reconnect your Android device to the Wi-Fi network. You’ll need to type the network password since as far as your device knows, this will be the “first time” you’re connecting to the network.
Having your Android device forget a Wi-Fi network clears all cached network settings and data, which often clears any network issues the Android device is experiencing.
Clear your Google Play Services cache. Google Play services that run in the background on your Android phone are known to occasionally cause network issues. This could be due to overuse of network bandwidth when the services automatically update all apps on your phone, but no one knows exactly whey these services sometimes cause network issues. The fixes for most Google Play Store errors are often the same fixes that’ll resolve this IP configuration failure.
Check if your router is blocking your device’s IP address. Sometimes, a wireless router may start blocking the IP address of devices on the network for no apparent reason. If you’ve confirmed the router isn’t explicitly set to block your device, you might be able to resolve this error by changing your Android to use a static IP on the network.
Turn Airplane mode on, wait about one minute, then turn it back off. Make sure Wi-Fi is turned off and ensure your phone can connect to the Internet over cellular data. If that works, find a Wi-Fi hotspot in your area and test connecting to that network. If you’re able to connect and use the internet, then you know the issue isn’t your phone. It’s the network.
You may have no other choice than to factory reset your Android if this issue is happening on your home network. If you’re temporarily trying to use someone else’s network, a less drastic option would be to just use your mobile data for internet access while you’re there.
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Frequently Asked Questions about do tablets have ip addresses
Where can I find my IP address on my tablet?
How to find your Android device IP address Open your Settings menu and tap on About. Tap on Status. You should now see the general information of your device, including the IP address.Jan 1, 2021
Why does my tablet not have an IP address?
Cause of “Failed to Obtain IP Address” Android Error The most common source of the error is a router issue. Either your device was intentionally blocked, or the connection problem is due to a router problem. It’s also possible that your Android’s own network hardware or software is malfunctioning or corrupt.Mar 23, 2021
Do phones and tablets have IP addresses?
Yes, they do. Any device that connects to the internet has an IP address, smartphones included.Jan 6, 2021