The IP address. Your gateway to the internet. That little set of numbers that guarantees you can log on and check mail, watch videos, etc. This is something I only used to bother about when my internet connection stopped working and I needed to check if there was a problem from my end.

All this while, my ISP had assigned me a static IP address. Then, a few days ago, someone from the ISP called me up asking me to change some settings. Turns out they are now assigning dynamic IPs to their users.

While my internet experience hasn’t really changed significantly, I got curious about the merits and demerits of both types of IP addresses. From what I’ve gleaned so far, the type of IP address doesn’t matter for the average home user. However, if you run some kind of server like Web, FTP, Email etc. then you definitely need a static IP address. I’m still not sure which one is better though so I’d like to get ghacks readers’ opinions on the subject.

What kind of IP address do you use? Have you ever had problems and had to switch? What advantages and disadvantages have you noticed with dynamic and static IP addresses? Let me know in the comments.