CGNAT (Carrier-Grade NAT)
Carrier-Grade NAT is a technology mobile carriers use to share one public IP address among thousands of subscribers.
CGNAT (Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation) is how mobile carriers handle the IPv4 address shortage. A carrier assigns one public IP address to thousands of customers simultaneously. All their outbound traffic appears to come from the same IP.
This creates an unusual dynamic for websites: one mobile carrier IP could represent thousands of real users. Blocking that IP means blocking thousands of legitimate customers. Sites are far more reluctant to block mobile carrier IPs for this reason.
For mobile proxy users, CGNAT translates directly to higher success rates. The same IP being used by real users continuously signals to anti-bot systems that the IP is legitimate, even under high request volume.
When you use a mobile proxy, you get one of these carrier-shared IPs. From the website's perspective, you look identical to one of thousands of regular mobile users browsing through that carrier.
CGNAT also makes mobile IPs rotate naturally - carriers reassign IPs regularly. Mobile proxy providers build rotation mechanisms on top of this to give users control over when the IP changes.
Thousands of subscribers behind one address
Carrier-grade NAT lets a provider serve many customers from a single public address. Each device gets a private address inside the carrier network, and outbound connections are translated to a shared public one with a port range per subscriber.
Mobile networks use this universally because IPv4 space is scarce and a phone does not need to be reachable from outside. Some fixed-line providers do the same on cheaper plans.
For proxy work the consequence is the point. A mobile exit address is shared with a large number of genuine subscribers, so a site that bans it bans real customers along with you. That asymmetry is why mobile addresses enjoy far more tolerance than hosting ranges.
Why our mobile proxies inherit that tolerance
A mobile modem sits behind the carrier's NAT exactly like a phone does:
What the site sees
Your modem -> carrier NAT -> one public address shared with
many real subscribers of that carrier
Rotation = the modem reconnects and the carrier hands out
whatever address is next in the pool- Rotation on mobile is a physical reconnect, not a routing decision, which is why it takes seconds rather than milliseconds.
- The same address sometimes returns after a rotation because the carrier pool is small. Rotate again or swap the modem.
- Sharing means you cannot be uniquely identified by address alone, and it also means you inherit the behaviour of everyone else behind it.
- Mobile costs from $5.76 per day precisely because someone has to own the SIM and the hardware in that country.
CGNAT misunderstandings
It does not make you anonymous
Your carrier maps sessions to subscribers. Sharing an address hides you from the destination, not from the network.
It is not unique to mobile
Fixed-line providers use it too, which is why some home connections cannot host anything.
Shared does not mean unreliable
The address is stable while the session lasts. What ends it is the reconnect.
It does not raise rate limits
Sites still count requests. Sharing changes the ban calculus, not the counter.
Related terms
See this in practice
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