Establish connection with an IP camera behind a modem-router assigned with a private IP by Internet Service Provider?

Question

Most solutions out there require the modem-router to have been assigned a public IP by the ISP. After which, one can access the IP camera via a portforward setting on the router.

However, my ISP only provides private IPs internal to their system (they probably have a limited pool of public IPs). So I am unable to view my IP cameras in the way described.

I'm wondering if there's a way to work around this problem without having to need a public IP. Since, after all, two users on Yahoo Messenger or Facebook Chat are able to find one another and exchange data despite both sides being within the internal networks of their respective ISPs.

Given that I only plan to view my IP cameras via iOS or Android running on a smartphone or tablet, any ready-to-use solutions out there?

Answer 1

Since your ISP only gives you private-range IP addresses, you likely can't accept any incoming connection requests at all on your network, that are not part of an established connection originating from within your network.

I'm wondering if there's a way to work around this problem without having to need a public IP. Since, after all, two users on Yahoo Messenger or Facebook Chat are able to find one another and exchange data despite both sides being within the internal networks of their respective ISPs.

The clients of services like this actually begin by making an outgoing connection to a well known server operated by the owner of that service. Outgoing requests, of course, are not blocked by NAT, just incoming requests. The central server likely forwards messages between clients as well.

A VPN would solve this problem. If you want to run your own VPN, you'll need a system somewhere that has a real public IP. If you want to access this using iOS devices, you probably want to look into setting up a PPTP style VPN (poptop on Linux supports this). You could also look into a third-party VPN provider (Hamachi may work, I've never tried it).

Answer 2

You can setup a free dynamic DNS service for your WAN IP address. Since your IP will be changing you will setup an alias for it. Something like [e-mail]. You can Google free dynamic DNS services. Here is one I have used in the past: NOIP. You will still need to have a port forwarded inside your network to the IP camera. Then to access it from your tablet or phone you would browse to [e-mail]:port#