ISP proxies combine the features of data centers and residential IPs: they are fast, but difficult to detect. This guide will help you learn more about ISP proxy servers, how they work, and what you can get from them.
What is an ISP Proxy (Static Residential Proxy)?
An ISP proxy is an intermediary IP address that is associated with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) but does not involve the end user. In other words, they are hosted on a server rather than on a residential device (such as a mobile phone or desktop computer).
Historically, static proxies were all data center addresses . They ran on cloud hosting companies’ servers and could be online for long periods of time. Residential proxies borrowed IPs from mobile and desktop devices, relying on people like you and me to keep their Wi-Fi turned on. This made it impossible to ensure long-term access to the same peer-to-peer residential IP address.
However, at some point the proxy service providers came up with a clever solution: why not take a datacenter IP address and register it under the ISP? They did exactly that, and that’s how ISP proxies came about.
This business model is fairly new, and getting major ISPs involved is still a challenge. As a result, ISP proxy networks are still fairly rare. But recently, more and more companies have started offering this service, and today multiple major providers can offer it to you.
Static Residential and ISP Proxy – Why Two Names?
ISP Proxy and Static Residential Proxy refer to the same thing. So why are there two terms? Static Residential Proxy is the older name used, used by a few providers at first. However, at some point these IPs were discovered by the sneaker enthusiast community, who then renamed them. Today, ISP Proxy is by far the more popular name, but they still exist side by side.
How do ISP proxies work?
Like any other proxy server, ISP proxies send your connection requests through a different IP address. They hide your own IP and location in the process, making the website see you or your automated software as a different person.
If you're familiar with the main proxy types, you'll know that data center IPs are cheap and fast, but easily detectable. Conversely, residential IPs cost a lot and are charged by volume, but are virtually undetectable. The difference between obvious and invisible comes down to something called an ASN, which is a number that identifies the owner of that IP address. Cloud hosting company? Get lost! Consumer ISP? Yes you can.
ISP Proxy uses the ASN of the consumer Internet service provider without having to deal with the end user's unstable Wi-Fi connection.
More on the difference between residential and ISP proxies.
Their advantages
When you take a datacenter IP address with all the bells and whistles, and throw an ISP’s ASN on top of it, you get a pretty sweet deal:
- Fast speeds. Unlike unstable consumer connections, data centers run on 1 Gbps or faster lines. This ensures low response times with little impact on your connection speed.
- High availability. How often do commercial servers go down? Most guarantee 99.9% availability, so the answer is: almost never.
- Optional rotation. While IP rotation is useful for tasks such as web scraping, sometimes rotation is not desirable. ISP proxies can rotate just fine by backing up a connection server, but they don't have to.
- High anonymity. Static residential proxies located under consumer ISPs look like legitimate IP addresses in the eyes of websites. This allows them to avoid security mechanisms that rely on IP reputation.
- Unlimited bandwidth. This last point depends heavily on the proxy provider’s pricing model. But by having full control over each IP, they don’t need to charge for the traffic their customers use. If used properly, this can save a ton of money when running data-intensive tasks.
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