Question Strange issue with my phone (possible ip problem)

[Retexid]

I will try and explain my problem as clearly as I can. For about a week now, I've noticed that while watching YouTube, ads have started appearing in a foreign language (German). I'm not from Germany; I'm from another country in Europe. At first, I didn't pay much attention to it, but later I started to get a bit concerned. I began checking if the language settings on my Google account had changed, but everything seemed fine there. I then started checking other things, such as my IP address, and that’s when I discovered something very strange. I visited a few websites that show your IP address and geolocation (where you are roughly located), and to my surprise, an IP address starting with 71 appeared, and it said I was in Germany! (I didn’t note the exact address, but I remember the beginning). This really puzzled me, so I went to the website again, literally just a few seconds later, and this time a completely different IP address showed up, starting with 31, and it correctly identified the country I’m from—though a different city, at least the country was right. I’ve been checking this for several hours now, and it always shows the second address (starting with 31), and the one located in Germany hasn’t appeared again. When I checked it on another similar website, the same IP (31) appeared, but once, an IP address starting with 80 showed up, and it was located in the Netherlands! (But that only happened once, and after reloading the page, it showed the 31 IP again). What’s interesting is that if I switch from mobile data to my home Wi-Fi, the German ads on YouTube disappear and ads in my native language appear, but when I switch back to mobile data, the issue returns! I really don’t know what to make of all this. Should I be worried, or is it something trivial? Thank you for any answers.

 

[rvbfan]

Your mobile maybe be picking up signals from multiple towers of equal or near equal strength some of which are in other countries. Any chance you live near a border? If not it could be inversions bouncing signals off the atmosphere to you.

Kinda like back in the day, sometimes, you could intermittently pick up radio signals from half a continent away.

 

[Retexid]

Your mobile maybe be picking up signals from multiple towers of equal or near equal strength some of which are in other countries. Any chance you live near a border? If not it could be inversions bouncing signals off the atmosphere to you.

I don't live near border at all...

 

[twistedddx]

Many/most carriers make use of carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) due to exhaustion of ipv4 addresses.
CGNAT means the public IP address your device appears to be connecting from can change. When it changes depends on the configuration at your carrier.
It sounds like your carrier has all the IP's you listed in their pool.

Location based on IP is often inaccurate. The databases used for IP locations are updated over time so this issue may disappear over time.

I would also double check what DNS server you are using as that can also influence what location services believe you are connecting from.
You could try using one of the large public DNS services from Google(8.8.8.8) or CloudFlare(1.1.1.1) and see if that improves things.

 

[Retexid]

Many/most carriers make use of carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) due to exhaustion of ipv4 addresses.
CGNAT means the public IP address your device appears to be connecting from can change. When it changes depends on the configuration at your carrier.
It sounds like your carrier has all the IP's you listed in their pool.

Location based on IP is often inaccurate. The databases used for IP locations are updated over time so this issue may disappear over time.

I would also double check what DNS server you are using as that can also influence what location services believe you are connecting from.
You could try using one of the large public DNS services from Google(8.8.8.8) or CloudFlare(1.1.1.1) and see if that improves things.

I just changed my DNS into the public Google DNS. Let's see what happens...

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Does this happen regardless of the wi-fi network you're using, or if you're using your mobile data? Also, are you using a VPN?