An Internet Protocol (IP) address is basically the address of your device on a network. It is a unique set of numbers used to identify your device and communicate with other devices on a network.
You might have heard that an IP address can be used to track your location. This is partially true, as your IP address can show your location on a city level. However, what if you move your physical location? Will your IP address stay the same?
The short answer is that your IP address will change when you move. However, there are a lot of factors involved in it. If you want to know more about it, you need to first understand the basics of IP addresses.
Understanding IP Address
Your IP address might change when you move depending on the type of IP address that you’ve got—static or dynamic. You will also need to know about the concept of public and private IP addresses.
So, let me explain everything to you in detail.
Public & Private IP Address
A public IP address is a globally unique IP address that you need to access the internet. you may basically understand it as the IP address of your router. A single home network usually only has one public IP address that all the devices inside the network share. It is the outward-facing IP address that websites will see when you access them.
A private IP address is the IP address of your device inside a network. It is assigned to your device by the network router’s DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. A private IP address is unique only inside the network it currently is in.
The introduction of private IP addresses helps conserve the already depleting public IP addresses. It does so by sharing one public IP address between multiple devices inside a network.
The sharing of one public IP address between many devices is made possible by Network Address Translation (NAT). As the name suggests, NAT basically translates a public IP address to a private one and vice versa. This ensures that even though one public IP address is shared inside a network, the data packets of each device reach their intended destination.
Dynamic & Static IP Address
There are two different kinds of IP addresses available in both private and public IP addresses.
A dynamic IP address is a temporary IP address leased to you by a DHCP server. In the case of a private IP address, the lease time is usually 24 hours. After 24 hours, your private IP address will refresh, and you will get a new IP address.
In the case of a public IP address, the lease time will differ depending on your ISP. However, they usually range between 7 to 10 days. Furthermore, most public and private IP addresses that you will use will be dynamic by default.
