SETTING STATIC IPs

Unfortunately, Android phones, like a lot of non-PC devices, don’t allow you to just set the DNS server while leaving the other internet settings (like local IP address and gateway) intact. If you want to change the DNS server, you have to change everything and set up a static IP address.

Now, if you’ve not done this before, then you should know that there are four numbers you’ll need to fill in:

The IP address: This will be the local IP address of this device. This one is tricky. Take a note of your router’s LAN IP address, the one you use to log into its administration console (commonly 192.168.1.1 or 10.1.1.1). Keep the first three numbers of that, but change the fourth one to anything between 1 and 255 as long as it doesn’t conflict with the router. It’s best to set it over 100 to avoid conflicts. For instance, if your router address is 192.168.1.1, then you could set this at 192.168.1.101.

The gateway: This is the IP address of your router (again, the one you use to log into its admin interface). The subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0. On Android and some other devices, the field instead says ‘Network prefix length’. If that’s the case, it should be 24. The DNS server address: If you’re using Google’s DNS, this is 8.8.8.8.