What is an IP address?

Sometimes when you are looking for support, the technician helping you will ask you what your IP address is. There are different types of IP addresses and sometimes it can get so confusing we broke it down to help.

An IP address (Internet protocol address) is essentially your mailing address on the world wide web. Every device that is connected to the internet has an IP address.

Your router or modem, which is usually provided by your ISP (internet service provider), gets a unique address. This is your WAN (wide area network) address also known as an external IP address.

Your router then hands internal LAN (local area network) IP addresses to each one of your devices that connects to the network. This includes laptops, desktops, mobile devices, home automation devices, sound systems and much much more.

To make matters even more confusing, a lot of people often use a VPN which masks their external IP address to look like it is coming from somewhere else.

However, more often than not, a technician troubleshooting will be looking for your external IP address which helps identify who your ISP is and where you are located. To help make things easier for the end user, we have set up this easy to use "what is my IP address" which will give you the needed information to give to your technician.