Mobile 4G Proxies: Rotating or Sticky IP, Which to Choose?

4G proxies have a reputation of their own: their addresses come from mobile networks, and platforms tend to tread carefully around them. But "4G proxy" covers very different products: an IP that changes with every request or one that stays put for days, a line reserved for you or a pool shared between customers. This guide explains what a mobile IP is, what it brings, where it falls short, and how to choose between a rotating IP and a sticky IP. To see where 4G fits among the other proxy families, read our comparison of ISP, datacenter, residential and mobile proxies.

What is a mobile IP?

A mobile IP is an address that a mobile operator assigns to one of its subscribers: a smartphone, a tablet, a 4G router or a modem. A 4G proxy sends your traffic out through that kind of connection. To the website you visit, the request comes from a mobile operator's network, just like a request from an ordinary phone.

CGNAT: one address for many subscribers

IPv4 addresses are scarce, and mobile operators have far more subscribers than public addresses. Most of the time, they rely on CGNAT (Carrier-Grade NAT): many subscribers reach the internet behind the same public IP, each on their own ports. At any given moment, a single mobile address can carry traffic from a large number of phones.

For a platform, blocking a mobile IP means risking locking out a lot of legitimate users at once. Platforms are therefore generally more tolerant of these ranges, and they judge accounts more by their behavior than by their address alone. That tolerance is not immunity: an account that breaks a platform's rules still gets penalized, whatever its IP.

Pros and cons of a 4G proxy

What a mobile IP brings:

• A mobile operator's reputation: the address is identified as part of a mobile network, not a hosting provider.
• The tolerance that comes with CGNAT, described above.
• The ability to change IP by requesting a new connection to the network.

What you have to accept:

• Speed and latency that vary more than on fiber. Signal quality, cell tower load and the time of day all affect performance.
• Rotation is not instant. Changing IP forces the modem to reconnect to the network, which drops the connection while it happens.
• A sticky IP is never guaranteed to stick. Even if you do not request a rotation, the operator may assign a new address when the line reconnects.

Rotating or sticky IP: how to choose

There are two opposite ways to use a mobile IP:

• a rotating IP changes regularly, whenever you ask or at an interval you choose: each batch of requests goes out from a different address;
• a sticky IP (you will also see the term sticky session) stays the same for hours or days, as long as you do not request a rotation.

The right choice depends on what you are doing:

The golden rule: never change IP in the middle of a logged-in session. End the session, rotate the IP, then open the next one. For account management, see also our guide to proxies for social media accounts; for data collection, the one on proxies for web scraping. In every case, follow each platform's terms of service: changing IP must never be a way to get around a suspension or a ban.

How rotation works on a real 4G line

On a real mobile line, changing IP is not just a matter of picking another address from a list. The modem detaches from the operator's network and then re-attaches, and the network assigns it a new address. This radio re-attachment takes around twenty seconds.

1. You request a rotation, with a button or through the API.
2. The line reconnects: for around twenty seconds, open connections drop.
3. The line comes back with a new IP. Check it, for example with our What is my IP tool, before restarting your tasks.

A minimum delay applies between two rotations. Plan your rotations between batches of work, and make sure your scripts know how to wait and retry. If you do not request a rotation, the IP stays the same as long as the mobile connection does not reset; the operator can still change the address during a reconnection it triggers on its own.

Dedicated line or shared pool

4G access is sold in two main ways:

• a shared pool: the provider groups many lines together and spreads all of its customers' traffic across them. The IP changes often, and you have no idea who else is using it at the same time, or for what;
• a dedicated (single-tenant) line: one line and its modem are reserved for a single customer. Only you send traffic through it, you decide when the IP changes, and the reputation of your sessions depends on your own usage alone.

Single-tenant does not mean the public address exists only for you: with CGNAT, it can also carry traffic from the operator's ordinary subscribers. That is normal for a mobile IP, and it is precisely what makes it credible. The difference concerns the service's other customers: on a dedicated line, none of them shares your connection. The same principle applies to regular proxies, as explained in our dedicated vs shared proxy comparison.

Airproxy's mobile 4G IP or a dedicated ISP proxy?

Airproxy's mobile 4G IP offer is a monthly rental of a French 4G line reserved for one customer at a time:

• unlimited data;
• unlimited IP changes, with a button in your customer area or through the API;
• HTTP and SOCKS5;
• an IP that stays the same between two rotations, as long as the mobile connection does not reset.

Since the line is rented to only one customer at a time, its availability is shown on the offers page.

For many uses, though, a dedicated ISP proxy is still the better choice. Its IPs come from consumer internet providers, stay static for the whole rental, are faster and more consistent than a radio connection, and cost much less per address. If you need several IPs in parallel, it is also the simplest option.