Well, not really. How about telling us what the router make/model is and the ISP in question?

If you're seeing a 192.168.x.x IP address, that's a local private network. Since you have access to the Internet, there's a public IP address somewhere in the mix.

 

The WAN IP address of your router is public, the LAN IP address is private.

 

Thanks for the reply, John.
The Router is an Altice Model UBC1322
and the ISP is Suddenlink (known for lousy internet service).
The Local IP (before the VPN) is 47.216.1xx.2xx.
Does that info give you a better clue?

Fred, a WAN is usually for Big businesses? This is at a Residence... small time operation.
Thanks.

 

Fred, a WAN is usually for Big businesses? This is at a Residence... small time operation.
Thanks.

No, WAN stands for Wide Area Network, which is the address exposed to the internet. It has nothing to do with business vs. residential. LAN is your Local Area Network, which uses private IP addressing that isn't directly accessible to the internet.

 

47.216.x.x is a public network address.

 

Great. Thanks for the terrific answers, people.

 

Your IP address from your modem to the ISP and out is your public IP.

Go to google.com and type "What is my IP?" into the search box to see your public IP.

Then your modem will take that public IP and most likely you have the "normal setup" where it uses DHCP, a protocol to assign dynamic IP addresses to your inner network. Most likely a 192.168.x.x IP address. These IPs are PRIVATE and not seen as such on the internet - you are seen as the public IP that is facing your ISP/google.com as above.

NOTE: A VPN will hide your actions from showing yourself as the public IP that your ISP gives your modem and will allow you to use an IP address that is not directly assigned to you as a single individual.

 

ALSO!

There are only three sets of PRIVATE IP's that do not work in the public internet:

192.168..
10...*
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network