Carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT, also known as large-scale NAT), is a method of sharing a single unique public IP address with multiple services to allow providers to extend their pool of usable IPv4 addresses. This means your modem or router will be assigned a private IP address instead of a unique public IP address. Our network will then translate that into a shared public address allowing you to access the Internet.
Why is Pineapple Net using CGNAT?
Our current pool of IPv4 addresses has been consumed and acquiring more gets exponentially more expensive each time, resulting in issues with scalability. Pineapple Net has opted to use CGNAT as a method to share the current unique public IPv4 addresses that we own to multiple customers, helping extend the life of IPv4 within our network while IPv6 is still being deployed. IPv6 is still being adopted throughout Internet and is not a solution on its own at this time.
How does this affect me?
This will not affect the majority of Pineapple Net customers and it should be business as usual, the only difference is that you will have a different IPv4 address assigned to your modem or router.
What are some things that may not work with CGNAT?
There are some things that may depend on NAT and its features to work, this is services related to port forwarding and may include:
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Servers: Web Servers, Email Servers, File servers and so on.
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Home Utilities: Security Cameras and systems, home automation, Printers
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Remote Access: Access to computers or devices remotely
If you have any concerns about these items please feel free to call our support team and have a chat.
What is an IP Address and NAT?
An IP Address is a unique address that is assigned to a device, this includes computers, phones, tablets and even network printers, every device connected to the network or the Internet needs its own address so it knows how to communicate. This is similar to how your house needs its own address so that it can receive mail.
IPv4 addresses come in 2 types, public and private
Your public IP address is your address on the Internet and allows you to get online, every device that wants to communicate online needs to have a public address. The problem is we have run out of public addresses that are available and purchasing more is expensive.
A private IP address is what can be used internally but these do not allow connection to the internet as they are private or internal addresses but do allow your devices to communicate with each other. A technology called NAT is then used to translate the private address to public and allow all of your local devices to connect to the Internet.
NAT is a technology that has helped to extend the life of IPv4 by sharing one public address to multiple private addresses, this is what allows you to get online with all of your devices at home without having a unique and expensive address for each device.
What about IPv6?
Pineapple Net is committed to delivering IPv6 as soon as possible, currently we are testing the deployment of IPv6 on selected connections and we look forward to sharing more news about this deployment when it is ready to be extended.