Bad IP address

[revrobertjoy]

I have a Verizon 720 and had it a year and it's been great but now I am experiencing problems in accessing my emails and my own server and websites. I can access every website except my own. My IP address out of Houston Texas is 70.218.235.255

When I use TengoNet to access the internet everything works just fine as it's using a different IP address.

Can anybody throw any words of wisdom and suggestions. I've been in contact with the server people and they tell me that it's a IP address that is causing the problem. How can I get the IP address changed?

[strculious · Accepted solution]

If you diaconnect and reconnect a few hours later you should get a new IP address. The IP address looks a little odd having .255 at the end. What is the subnet mask they assigned?

Some other questions.

Have you tried going to your website by putting the IP address in the browser?

Have you tried viewing your website using Google Cache?

Are there any other websites you cannot get to? Seems odd that only your site is not working.

[revrobertjoy]

Since then I now have a different IP address and everything is working. Yes the IP address ending with 255 was correct as whatismyip.com showed it as correct. My server guys said the 70.218.235.255 is a broadcasting IP so why or how it was assigned to me is a mystery, but all is well and I thank you for your comments.

[strculious]

Yeah, 255 is typically a broadcast IP. That can change if you have an odd ball subnet mask.

Glad it worked. Happy surfing.

[Canada]

The Internet now uses (and has used for years) what is known as CIDR, or Classless Internet Domain Routing.  CIDR means that you cannot infer anything about the structure of a network from the IP address itself.  That includes what the broadcast address might be.  You need both the IP address and the subnet mask to understand network  structure.

Examples:

IP address 192.168.2.2 mask 255.255.255.128, broadcast address = 192.168.2.127

IP address 192.168.2.2 mask 255.255.255.0, broadcast address = 192.168.2.255

IP address 192.168.2.2 mask 255.255.252.0, broadcast address= 192.168.3.255

IP address 192.168.2.255 mask 255.255.252.0, broadcast address = 192.168.3.255

the mask of 255.255.252.0, also notated as /22, implies that the network is 10 bits, or 2 to the 10th, or 1024 addresses, in size. Therefore, in a network which includes all addresses from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.3.255,  the addresses 192.168.0.255, 192.168.1.255, and 192.168.2.255 are all valid host addresses.

What can happen, and what may make an IP address "bad", is that some bad actor uses the IP address in a way which gets the address put on a blacklist.  If Verizon doesn't catch it right away, when that address gets assigned to someone other than the original bad actor, the address still gets treated as tho it's blacklisted.  This is a problem on networks where IP addresses are frequently re-assigned to different customers.

Hope this helps.