Contributor
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27 Messages
Question about assigned IP address
Hi! I have a question about my assigned IP address. First, my Internet service is working perfectly well. NO ISSUES to report, thank goodness. :) Outside of occasional power outages in my area, the service has been fast, stable and reliable.
I'm in the S.F. Bay Area in the East Bay. After the last power outage, that caused a Comcast outage, I noticed my cable modem was assigned a different IP address than before (which is fine). I've noticed my IP address is associated with a city that's about 85mi from where I actually am.
My question: If my assigned IP address is associated with a city that's 85mi away, does that mean my Internet traffic is routed to that city *first* and then to the public Internet? Or does the city associated with the IP address impact how my Internet traffic is routed, in any way?
If I use a "What is my IP address" kind of site to see what my assigned IP address is (the public facing address), I can get location information and that information indicates my address is associated with a city that's 85mi away from me.
Thanks in advance!
Accepted Solution
BruceW
Gold Problem Solver
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26.4K Messages
2 years ago
No. The locations reported by IP geolocation sites are guesses, and are not used in routing Internet traffic.
For grins, plug your public IP (from https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+my+ip) into an IP geo comparison site like https://www.iplocation.net/ip-lookup, which returns locations from several providers. When I do that, 5 of the results are very close, 2 are 30 miles away, and one is 60 miles away. Not horrible, but not terribly accurate either.
Trace programs like "tracert" in Windows and "traceroute" in other systems can give you a better (if incomplete) sense of where your Internet traffic is being routed than any IP geo site.
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XfinityAnthonyT
Official Employee
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1K Messages
2 years ago
Hey there, that is a good question! It is likely that your nearest tower is 85 miles away or within that range of the city you mentioned. While distance can play a factor, I would say that is fairly minuscule in internet terms so nothing to worry about there. Now if it was locating you in a different state then definitely something to look into!
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