ISP for audio streaming: Dynamic IP vs. Static IP

Question

I'm an audio streaming enthusiast and would like to know the differences between an ISP that provides a Dynamic IP with another one that has a static and private IP.

What's the recommendation for someone who streams audio 24/7? Assuming that the ISP that provides a dynamic IP renews every 72 hours: will the audio stream be affected by the IP change? For example, with a micro-cut that takes the audio streams down for a moment.

Answer 1

Assuming that the ISP that provides a dynamic IP renews every 72 hours

Renewing a dynamic IP address is not the same as changing a dynamic IP address.

With good ISPs, even if you obtain the dynamic address using DHCP, then the same lease can be renewed again and again essentially forever – as long as the client router doesn't let it expire, it will keep having the same address for years. (This is standard DHCP behavior, as long as the ISP doesn't actually impose deliberate restrictions.)

Some other ISPs do enforce daily or weekly address changes (in some countries), but that is not inherent in having a dynamic IP address.

will the audio stream be affected by the IP change? For example, with a micro-cut that takes the audio streams down for a moment

It depends on the streaming technology, but in most cases (especially with basic TCP/HTTP-based streams), if an address change is forced, the connection will be completely cut off until the client notices a timeout and reconnects to the new address.

(Most transport protocols simply don't have any "roaming" features built in, and it's not guaranteed that the streaming server will even be aware of the address change at all, especially if the server is behind NAT and the address actually belongs to the router and not the server.)

Answer 2

It truly isn't a big deal if your IP changes dynamically or if it is static; it used to many years ago but not anymore. There is a service called DynDNS (there are others out there) who provide a service called Dynamic DNS. The service registers the changed public IP to the name of your service so that whoever is finds your service without having to rely on a permanent static IP. It does require for you to update the current IP periodically; which can be done using a downloadable agent, however most routers now have this functionality built into them. You have to look into your router configuration to see where it is.

Even really big businesses have multiple public IP's that they rotate to keep their services balanced or sourced from different countries. Their DNS servers do something similar to this to resolve their IP addresses.