How to Set IP Address on Smartphones?

If you are a person from a nontechnical background, you might be amazed to know that your smartphones can be provided with IP Addresses. To enjoy an internet connection, your phones must have an IP Address. For mobile data connections, these IP Addresses are automatically assigned to your phones by the Internet Service Providers. But there are situations when IP Addresses should be manually entered into your smartphones. Let us check about this in detail.

When to Set Static IP Address on Android Smartphones?

 

 To increase the security of the network, a lot of Wi-Fi devices are now configured with the DHCP disabled in them. To know how to set up your Wi-Fi router with this Setting, check my article on that topic. Once the DHCP is disabled in the Wireless router, no device can use internet through it, unless a manual IP Address is set in them. So, a mobile device connected to such a router needs static IP Address setting.  This is required in addition to the Wi-Fi password that normally requires on DHCP enabled Wi-Fis also. This is an example of a situation where is it required to have manual IP Address on your smartphones. There are also a lot of other similar cases. To help you sustain in such situations, I am here explaining the step by step process on how to set IP Address on smartphones manually.

Before starting the process of changing the IP Address, I will first tell you how to check the current IP Address on your smartphones. For this, open the "Settings" option on your phone followed by the "WLAN" option. Then select the "More" option and then the "Advanced" menu. There you can find the IP Address of your smartphone mentioned as the "IPv4 Address". After changing the IP Address manually, you can check there again to make sure that it is changed as per your requirement.

How to Change IP Address on Android Smartphones/Tablets?

 

Now we will start the step by step process to change the IP Address of smartphones from DHCP to Static. I am explaining it with the help of a smartphone that runs on Marshmallow Operating System. The process may be a little bit different for another Android OS. However, if you go through the below process, you will be able to identify the options in the other OS also. The first step in this process is to open the "Settings" menu on your Android smartphones or tablets. There you can find the "WLAN" option. As I said earlier, the option may be a little bit different on your device. But you can easily find the Wi-Fi option on your smartphone.

Now open the “WLAN” menu which will display all the available networks within that area. then select and open the Wi-Fi device that you want to connect. If it’s already not connected, it will ask you to enter the password. After entering the password, you will get connected to the Wi-Fi. Now open this connected Wi-Fi device’s option and you can see the “IP Settings”. It will be now displaying the “DHCP” as the selected mode. Change it to “Static”. As soon as you change this setting, you will get the option to manually enter the IP Address for your smartphone. Enter these details including the IP Address, Gateway, Network Prefix length, DNS1, DNS2 etc. and save the settings. All these details can be obtained from the administrator of the Wi-Fi router to which you are connected. This completes the process to set IP Address on smartphones in a static manner.

How to Set an IP Address on Computer?

As discussed in one of my previous posts, the IP Addresses works as the backbones of the Internet System.  Either it is your smartphone or the computers, IP Addresses are very much required to run internet on them. In the broadband routers that we use at our home, the IP Addresses are automatically provided by the ISPs. So, there is no need to setup manual IP for the internet connection. However, we can set up these broadband routers in such a way that all the connected devices should be given manual IP Address to get internet services. I recommend you enable this feature so that you can prevent unauthorized access to your network. To know how to enable it, visit my post on “How to Setup a Broadband Router/Modem?”. In this post, I will show you how to setup an IP Address on computer.

Set IP Address on Windows-Based Computers: -

 

Windows are the most commonly used Operating System available in the market right now. This Operating System developed by Microsoft is far ahead of the other OS in its usage. So, here we are also providing the step by step process to add IP Address on a Windows computer. The present versions of the Windows Operating Systems used by normal users are Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 & 8.1 and Windows 10. There are also available versions of Windows servers that are normally used for official purposes. In all the above versions except Windows XP, the below method will work. As Microsoft already announced the End of Support for Windows XP, you should migrate to any other Windows versions.

How to Set Up Manual IP Address?

 

Click on the “Windows + R” button on your computer. This will open the “Run” menu. Type “ncpa.cpl” on the search bar and click “Enter”. This will open the “Network Connections” page on your screen. There you can find all the different available network connections on your device. The Wired LAN connections probably have the description of "Ethernet" and Wireless ones are mentioned as "Wi-Fi". Depending on your situation, you can right-click either one of these options and go to the "Properties" menu. There you can find the “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” option. Double click on it and it will open the option to add IP Address on your computers.

Now select the “Use the Following IP Address” and it will provide you the option to add the IP Address, Subnet Mask & Default Gateway for your device. You must be available with these information if you want to proceed further. Enter each of these options one by one. Then select the “Use the Following DNS Server Addresses” option. Now you will be asked to enter the “Preferred DNS Server” and “Alternate DNS Server Address”. Enter these details and check again that you have input all the IP Address related information correctly. Then click on the “OK” button. If you find any notification to proceed further, click “OK” and move ahead. Now your computer will be able to work with the IP Address that we have manually setup.

To make sure that your computer has taken the IP Address open the “Run” menu again, type “CMD” and press Enter. In the newly opened window type “IPCONFIG” and click on the Enter button. In the result, check whether it displays all the information correctly as entered by us.

How to Setup Automatic IP Address?

 

 

There are situations when you are not required to enter IP Address on computer manually. It is when the DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) is enabled on your network. It means the main Internet device on your network automatically assigns IP Address to all the connected devices. In that case, there is no need to specify IP Address and other related information as mentioned in above process. Here also all the steps are same up to opening the window for entering the IP Address. But in this case, we will select the “Obtain an IP Address Automatically” option. We will also select the “Obtain DNS Server Address Automatically” option. After enabling these features, we won’t be able to add any IP Address related information manually. All the required details will be gained automatically. 

What Is An IP Address & Why Is It Used?

IP Address is a very common term in the field of Internet. You might be already heard about this a lot of times in the news. So, what is an IP Address and how come it relevant to the latest news? As the name indicates the IP Address is an address that is mandatory if you want to run the internet on your computers, smartphones etc. You may not be aware of the fact that your smartphones are able to browse the internet because of the IP Address that they automatically take from the Internet Service Provider (ISP). Just like our home has a physical address, the computers & other devices that run internet also possess an address. This helps others to identify that particular device. This is what is known as an IP Address.

How Does It Work?

Whenever you send a post to your friend how does it reaches him? At first, it might be taken from the postbox by the local postman and carried to your nearest post office. Then it will be transferred from your local post office to the main post office and then to the receiver’s nearby post office. From there it will be delivered to your friend. Once your friend replies to you with an acknowledgment letter it will reach you at your concerned address as well. All these things happen depending on the address written on the postal cover. Similarly, if you want to get some information from any website both the website and your computer must possess an IP Address. That is the importance of the IP Address in the current communication system.

Two different types of IP Address Systems are now available for use. First one is the IPV4 and the second one is the IPV6. For a normal user, there is no need to go deeper into the details of both these systems. The only thing that you need to understand is that the majority of the systems are using the IPV4 IP Address system only. It is the oldest among the two and has been used Worldwide for a very long time. Unfortunately, it is expected to get completely utilized very soon. That is why the new IPV6 system comes to exist.

Security Purpose: -

Now let us check the relevance of the IP Address system in the currents news. As said earlier, every computer possesses an IP Address and it helps us to identify that particular computer. Nowadays many security issues are seen to be affecting the Internet users all around the World. The culprit behinds these incidents are getting identified with the help of the IP Address of the systems used by them. Even though there are options to mislead the investigators with the wrong IP Addresses, still they manage to capture the culprits with the help of the advanced tools they possess. So, IP Addresses are not only helping us to browse the Internet websites on our devices but also helps for security purposes as well.

Setting up the IP Address on your computers and smartphones is an easy task. I have written separate posts on this. If you are a computer user, you can check it here on “How to Setup an IP Address on Your Computer?”. Smartphone users can check it on “How to Setup an IP Address on Your Smartphone?”.