Our network has been designed to provide the most efficient use of public IP addresses. With a limited number of public IP addresses available in the world, it would be quite difficult to manage a network of our size without obtaining a large block of IP addresses. In order to accomplish this, we have designed our network to operate within a private IP space.

Maintaining a private network has added security benefits for our customers. Inbound traffic originating from outside our network cannot reach our customers. This is essentially a firewall. Only customers who request a public IP are vulnerable to traffic originating from outside our network. For this reason, we advise all customers who utilize a public IP to run a firewall device or software firewall to protect their computers.

In order for this to work, we employ a process known as One-to-one Network Address Translation, or 1TO1 NAT. This function is performed at our main network router. Only private IP's transgress our network, so customers with public IP addresses are translated to public IPs at the router, and vice versa.

The process of NAT, for the most part, has no effect on most Internet activities. However, some specialized applications require a customer to have a public IP.