Why is my IP blocked at a website I visit regularly after I changed ISPs?

I’m sure they like the Verizon service just fine. What’s more likely is that
someone else who also used the Verizon service broke a forum rule or something
and that got him banned.

Unfortunately this demonstrates one of the problems with IP-based banning or
identification. It frequently doesn’t work. There’s a good chance that you’re
blocked instead and the original user can get right back in.

There are roughly three things you can do.

As you know by now every computer connected to the internet is assigned an
IP address. Those addresses are assigned by your ISP, statically (a permanent
assignment) or dynamically when you connect (a temporary assignment).

In the case of Verizon’s wireless service, your computer is assigned a
dynamic IP when you initially connect. The computer retains that IP address as
long as it’s connected to the network (I’ll have a small caveat about that in a
moment). When you disconnect that IP is returned to Verizon’s available pool of
IP addresses where it might be assigned to the next person to come along and
connect.

In other words the IP your machine is assigned today may have been assigned
to someone else before you.

So here’s what’s most likely happened:

• Person A comes along and connects to the internet via Verizon’s broadband.
  They’re assigned an IP address.

• They visit the forum you’re also wanting to visit and they raise heck. The
  administrator of that forum says “enough of this”, notes what IP address
  they’re posting from, and blocks it.

• Person A disconnects.

• Some time later you come along. It could be minutes, hours, or days later,
  but you’re randomly assigned the same IP address that Person A was using when
  he (or she) was causing problems.

• That IP is still blocked at your forum. You pay the price for someone else’s
  behavior.

The ultimate irony is that Person A can probably reconnect, randomly get
assigned a different IP address, and continue posting.

However, the forum moderator could deal with that irony by blocking
all IP addresses which originate from Verizon’s broadband. ISPs are
themselves assigned blocks of IP addresses, and it’s relatively easy to block
an entire range.

Unfortunately there’s no real way for you to know what’s happening.

Here are the options as I see it:

1. Disconnect and reconnect, hoping to get a new IP address. (Run “ipconfig” in
   a Windows Command Prompt to see the IP address that’s been assigned to your
   Verizon connection.) Caveat: you may want to make sure to power down the
   Verizon Express card and then turn it back on. It’s possible that even though
   “disconnected” it may retain its IP address while powered on. If you get a new
   IP address, then you may be able to visit the forum. If you can’t, chances are the
   entire range is blocked and you’ll have to take the next step.

2. I know you said you can’t just go to the forum owners, but in fact that’s
   what you’ll have to do. This isn’t something that you’ll be able to side-step
   without their help, especially if they’ve blocked an entire range of IP
   addresses.

3. Use a different ISP. As you say, you’ve been able to access this forum at
   various Wifi hotspots, and perhaps that’s what you’ll need to keep doing if you
   can’t get the IP block removed. Use your Verizon connection on the road and
   wherever else it makes sense, but get your forum “fix” by firing up the Wifi at
   local hotspots along the way.

OK, there’s a fourth option: use a proxy. Something like Anonymizer will
route your traffic through their servers, making it look like it’s
coming from their IP address instead of yours. There are several such services of varying complexity, speed, and cost. I’ve not yet used one myself.

For the record I also recently got a Verizon Express card and have been
quite happy with it. Or rather, my wife has, as she recently spent an entire
1.5 hours on the road running her business remotely while I was driving us down
the freeway.