The cost of mobile gigabytes is 2 to 5 times higher than that of residential ones: according to the Proxyway review of mobile proxies for 2026, prices start at $2/GB for DataImpulse, $4/GB for Decodo, $4.25/GB for Byteful, $6.8/GB for IPRoyal, and $7.5/GB for Oxylabs — while residential traffic on the market starts at $1–2/GB. You pay this markup for one characteristic: the address must belong to a mobile operator. And this is exactly the characteristic that no dashboard shows you — in the panel, you see the line "Mobile / RU / Moscow," but what lies behind it, you will have to figure out on your own.
Verification has become more relevant because the market has reshuffled. Bright Data, the largest player in the industry, has removed mobile proxies from its lineup: as of September 8, 2026, its page brightdata.com/proxy-types/mobile-proxies only lists residential, data center, and ISP proxies; there is no mobile product there anymore. In the latest Proxyway ranking of mobile providers for 2026, Bright Data is also absent — the top 9 are Decodo, Oxylabs, SOAX, Byteful, NodeMaven, DataImpulse, IPRoyal, Proxy-Seller, and Evomi. Demand has not disappeared but has been redistributed among dozens of smaller brands, with a sixfold variation in pool size: 1,192,449 unique IPs at Oxylabs versus 177,428 at SOAX. Externally, all offers look the same.
What Technically Makes an IP "Mobile"
Three signs, all three of which can be verified externally:
- The prefix is announced by the autonomous system of the mobile operator. Not "any communication operator," but specifically the mobile segment — this is a key detail we will return to later.
- CGNAT stands behind the address. Mobile operators hide thousands of subscribers behind a single public IP, so platforms cannot ban such an address outright — the accompanying damage is too great. This is where the loyalty comes from, for which the markup is charged; we discussed the mechanics in our article on CGNAT, bans, and rate limits on mobile proxies.
- The reverse DNS record is often empty, but not always. Many operators do not create PTR records for subscriber mobile addresses, while home wired internet almost always has a distinctive pattern. There are exceptions: in the mobile AS8359 MTS, records like ASR-NGN-XXX.Moscow.access.comstar.ru can be found, so rDNS is a confirming signal, not a verdict in itself.
The main trap is that a large telecom brand owns several autonomous systems, and not all of them are mobile. A live example: AS3216 belongs to PJSC "VimpelCom," but this is a broadband segment, and an address from there is classified as non-mobile, with a reverse record like static-a1.Kemerovo.golden.ru. However, AS31133 and AS25159 of the same "MegaFon" are mobile, with empty rDNS. Therefore, "it's the address of a well-known operator" is not an argument. The argument is the number of the autonomous system.
Check 1. Basic Screenshot in 30 Seconds
The fastest tool is the free ip-api.com. It returns three boolean flags, which are described in the documentation as follows: mobile — "Mobile (cellular) connection," hosting — "Hosting, colocated or data center," proxy — "Proxy, VPN or Tor exit address." Pass a request through the proxy to the service and check the output:
curl -s "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status,country,city,isp,as,asname,reverse,mobile,proxy,hosting"
Here are the examples. A real mobile address from T-Mobile USA: "as":"AS21928 T-Mobile USA, Inc.", "reverse":"", "mobile":true, "hosting":false. A home wired address from Comcast: "as":"AS7922 Comcast Cable Communications, LLC", "reverse":"c-73-0-0-1.hsd1.fl.comcast.net", "mobile":false. A data center address from DigitalOcean: "as":"AS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC", "mobile":false, "hosting":true. Russian mobile segments show the same picture: MTS AS8359 and "MegaFon" AS31133 return mobile:true, while "Rostelecom" AS12389 returns mobile:false.
Keep in mind the limitations of the free plan: 45 requests per minute from one address, exceeding this will result in HTTP 429 and a one-hour block, encryption is not supported on the free plan (only HTTP). For bulk checking, there is a batch endpoint: up to 100 addresses in one JSON array, up to 15 such requests per minute.
Check 2. Autonomous System Number via RIPEstat
The mobile flag is someone else's heuristic, and you cannot rely solely on it. Independently determine which AS announces the prefix with your address:
curl -s "https://stat.ripe.net/data/network-info/data.json?resource=172.58.0.1"
The response will include the asns and prefix fields — this data comes from the global routing table, not someone's interpretation. The next question is simple: does this ASN belong to a mobile operator or a hosting provider? If the name of the autonomous system includes DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Cloud.ru, or any other cloud brand — you have been sold a data center address disguised as mobile, and the conversation is over. The AS number is the most stable indicator of all: it cannot be "fabricated" in the dashboard, it comes from global routing.
Check 3. Reverse DNS Record
The reverse field from the first check is a quick and underrated signal. An empty string for a mobile address is normal and occurs most often. A pattern like c-73-0-0-1.hsd1.fl.comcast.net or static-a1.Kemerovo.golden.ru indicates a wired home or business channel: this is a residential proxy, but not mobile. A record like core1.ash.hetzner.com is direct evidence of a data center.
Check 4. Second Independent Source
The rule is simple: one service is an opinion, two converging ones are a fact. For a second source, IPinfo is convenient: it has a separate dataset for operators, where for a mobile address it returns the fields name, mcc (Mobile Country Code, three digits for the country), and mnc (Mobile Network Code, two to three digits for the specific network). Full carrier output is available on Plus and Max plans, while the basic Core only answers the question "is the address associated with a mobile operator or not" — this is sufficient for accepting a purchase.
A discrepancy between two sources for the same address is not a reason to delve deeper into research, but a reason not to pay.
Check 5. Rotation Test, Not Just One Address
The only check that really matters for the buyer: how does not just one address look, but the entire flow of output. It costs the seller nothing to keep a dozen honest mobile IPs on display while routing the majority of traffic through a residential pool. Gather 50–100 outputs in a row and calculate the statistics:
for i in $(seq 1 60); do
curl -s -x http://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT \
"http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=query,as,isp,mobile,hosting"
echo
sleep 2
done | tee mobile-audit.jsonl | \
python3 -c "
import sys, json, collections
rows = [json.loads(l) for l in sys.stdin if l.strip()]
mob = sum(1 for r in rows if r.get('mobile'))
print('total:', len(rows), '| mobile:', mob, '| share:', round(100*mob/len(rows), 1), '%')
print('unique IPs:', len({r.get('query') for r in rows}))
for a, n in collections.Counter(r.get('as') for r in rows).most_common(10):
print(' ', n, a)
"A two-second pause is needed to avoid hitting the limit of 45 requests per minute. What to read in the result:
- Share of mobile:true. In an honest mobile pool, this is close to one. A value around half means that you have mixed two products and are being charged mobile rates for both.
- Distribution of autonomous systems. All ASNs should belong to mobile operators of the declared country. The appearance of hosting AS in the list is a defect.
- Number of unique addresses. If three or four IPs returned from 60 requests, you effectively have no rotation, regardless of what it is called in the dashboard.
Check 6. Geo and Operator
The final step is to compare what was promised with what is actual. If you purchased a pool from a specific operator, all outputs should lie within its autonomous systems. If you purchased by city, check if the output is scattered across half the country: mobile addresses are already roughly geolocated, but jumps between countries within the same "location" mean that the pool is collected from heterogeneous sources. Also, check the proxy flag — if the service already marks the issued address as a proxy exit, platforms with anti-fraud will see exactly the same.
Red Flags in One List
- hosting:true or a cloud brand in the AS name — this is a data center, not a mobile network;
- reverse record with static, dedicated, vps, hsd, or the name of a host;
- the share of mobile:true significantly below 100% in a long sample;
- a "mobile" address that does not change for days and has a PTR of a wired type;
- discrepancy in responses from two independent services;
- the seller refuses to provide test access before payment.
What to Do If the Check Doesn't Match
The course of action is straightforward. Document the output (the very mobile-audit.jsonl) — this is the only argument in correspondence with support that cannot be countered with "everything works on our end." Request a replacement of the pool or a refund for the unused volume. And never buy a large package of mobile traffic without a preliminary test on a minimal volume: all six checks above can be completed in 15 minutes and a couple of hundred megabytes. A more general acceptance checklist — on speed, uptime, DNS and WebRTC leaks — is compiled in the article how to test proxies before buying.
And an Honest Question: Do You Even Need Mobile Proxies?
The markup of 2 to 5 times is not justified in many cases. A mobile pool is needed where the platform historically treats mobile addresses more leniently due to CGNAT: account registrations and warming up accounts on social media, working with mobile applications, scenarios with strict anti-fraud. For scraping catalogs, price monitoring, and gathering outputs, residential proxies provide comparable results at significantly lower costs, and the overpayment for "mobility" simply gets lost in traffic.
If a mobile address is truly needed — get mobile proxies and run the six checks above on a trial volume before paying for a large package. This is one of those cases where fifteen minutes of work are worth the difference between an honest product and a pretty line in the dashboard.