What is The Difference Between Local IP and Global IP?

Many people are confused about which IP is which. If you are sitting on the internet right this minute you have two IP’s right now. One being global and one being local.

What is The Difference Between Local IP and Global IP

A global IP is an IP address set by your ISP (internet service provider) and can be communicated with from anywhere on the internet. For example I have CCTV that I can connect to if I know the global IP of the network that the DVR machine is connected to.

A global IP address looks very random. Something like 121.59.222.32 or 60.123.75.135. Each time your router is reset or reconnects it will be given a new IP address from your ISP.

Basically you have no control over the IP address unless you actually pay for a static IP address.

A Local IP address is set by your router and can only be communicated with from within your network. For example, you can use remote desktop to connect to other computers.

You can connect more than one computer to your network, especially if you have a wireless network. There will still be one global IP address, but each device will be assigned a unique local IP address within the network.

See the diagram below. The ISP gives the router a global IP when it is connected to the internet. The router assigns all computers and devices a unique IP address so this is why their IP starts with 192.168.0.???

To change your global IP address you only need to restart your router and the ISP will assign another. You can also get a static IP as opposed to a dynamic IP to have an IP that never changes.

To change your IP address of your computer you can simply set a static IP manually.

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