4G/5G mobile proxies: what they are and how they work

A proxy is a middleman: your software (browser, script, antidetect tool) sends requests to the proxy, which forwards them to the website and passes the response back. The website sees the proxy's IP address, not yours.

What sets proxy types apart is where the traffic exits. A datacenter proxy exits from a server in a data centre, a residential proxy from someone's home line, a mobile proxy from a carrier's cellular network. Websites can see the difference and it heavily affects how they treat the connection. We compare them in Mobile vs residential vs datacenter proxies.

Behind a mobile proxy there's a device with a SIM card: a smartphone or a 4G/5G modem. The device is connected to the carrier's network and, at the same time, to a server that receives your connections. The path looks like this:

1. Your software connects to the proxy with host, port, username and password, over HTTP or SOCKS5.
2. The server forwards the connection to the smartphone assigned to you.
3. The smartphone opens the connection to the website using its mobile data.
4. The website sees a carrier IP with the traits of a cellular network.

At ProxyHub every proxy is a real smartphone on a 5G network: phone and SIM are dedicated to a single customer, so no other customer uses your connection at the same time.

Carriers have far fewer IPv4 addresses than subscribers. So they use CGNAT (Carrier-Grade NAT): hundreds or thousands of phones reach the Internet through the same public IP. If a website blocked a mobile IP, it would also block every real user sharing it at that moment.

As a result, anti-fraud systems treat mobile IPs far more cautiously than datacenter IPs, which belong to servers and can be blocked in bulk without hurting regular users. We explain the mechanism in What is CGNAT.

When a phone disconnects and reconnects to the network, the carrier hands it a new address from its pool. A mobile proxy relies on exactly that: rotation is the device reconnecting to the network.

With ProxyHub you can change IP in three ways: the “Rotate IP” button in the client area, calling the rotation link from your scripts, or turning on automatic rotation at regular intervals. The new IP is usually ready in 10–30 seconds. When to rotate and when not to is covered in IP rotation: when and how.

To websites the difference between 4G and 5G is almost invisible: both are mobile networks of the same carrier and the IPs look the same. What changes is speed and latency. On 5G there's more bandwidth (up to 100 Mbps with ProxyHub) and lower response times, which you notice most when opening many pages or loading heavy content.

Modern mobile networks also assign an IPv6 address. A dual-stack proxy gives you both: IPv6 where the site supports it and IPv4 otherwise.

The most common uses are those where you need to appear as a real user from a specific country:

• Managing multiple accounts on social networks and marketplaces, each with its own profile and IP: see Managing multiple social accounts safely.
• Ad and search verification, seeing results as a smartphone user in Italy, the Netherlands, the UK or France sees them.
• Testing apps and websites on a real mobile network, with real latency and IPs.
• Collecting public data (prices, availability) at a reasonable pace: see Web scraping with proxies.

A proxy doesn't make an unlawful use lawful: always respect the terms of the services you use and the laws of your country.

• Dedicated or shared device: on a shared phone other customers use your IP and its reputation.
• Country and carrier: the IP should match the audience you care about.
• Protocols: HTTP and SOCKS5 cover virtually every tool. The differences are in HTTP vs SOCKS5.
• TCP/IP fingerprint: it should match the operating system your browser reports. See TCP/IP fingerprint.
• Rotation: manual, via link and automatic.
• Traffic: with a time-based plan and unlimited traffic you don't have to count GB.