GeoIP2 for retrieving city and region ?

[Benjamin Kaplan]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Νικόλας <nikos at superhost.gr> wrote:
> Στις 13/7/2013 7:54 μμ, ο/η Dennis Lee Bieber έγραψε:
>>
>>         Are you paying for a fixed IP number? I suspect you are if you
>> were
>> running a world-accessible server.
>>
>>         Obviously a fixed IP will be tied to a fixed connection and
>> thereby to
>> a fixed location which can be provided to a location database.
>>
>>         But most of us have DHCP assigned IP numbers, which change
>> everytime we
>> reboot our connection (or even when the DHCP lease expires -- which may be
>> daily).
>
>
> Same networking scheme for me too, dynamic that is.
>
> Every time the DHCP lease expires or i reboot the router i get a new ip
> address but every time the link i provided states accurately that my ip
> address is from Thessaloníki and not Europe/Athens which is were my ISP
> location is.
>
> Not to mention that in facebook, no matter the way i'am joining, via
> smartphone, tablet, laptop it always pinpoints my exact location.
>
> But yes, i can understand your skepticism.
> An ip address can move anywhere while remaining connected to the same ISP,
> just like a networking device in the house, remains connected to the same
> router while changing rooms or even floors, or even buildings.
>
> But then how do you explain the fact that
> http://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip_demo
> pinpointed Thessaloníki and not Athens and for 2 friends of mine that use
> the same ISP as me but live in different cities also accurately identified
> their locations too?
>

It's not telling you where your ISP is headquartered. It's telling you
where the servers that you're connecting to are. In your case, you're
connecting to servers that your Athens-based ISP has in a Thessaloniki
datacenter. The only way to get an accurate location is to use
something other than IP- phones like to use a combination of their
GPS, a map of the cell phone towers, and a map of wi-fi hotspots (this
is one of the things that Google's StreetView cars log as they drive).