How 4G Mobile Proxies Might Help in Web Scraping

Many sources claim that mobile (3G/4G/5G) proxies are significantly better than residential ones, especially for scraping tasks. Yet if you think about it, they don’t have any obvious technical advantages: the connection is less stable, speed can fluctuate depending on a huge number of factors you can’t control, response time can reach embarrassingly high values, and they are more expensive than any other type of proxy. It’s hard to argue with all that, and yet mobile proxies still remain the best option.

In this article, we’ll break everything down so you understand why and when mobile 4G proxies are the top, no-alternative solution.

4G Mobile Proxies 101: What They Are and Why They Look “Real”

Mobile 4G proxies are proxies that run on devices connected to the Internet via fourth-generation mobile networks: smartphones, tablets, modems, mobile routers, and so on.

4G (Fourth Generation) is a general term for a whole set of technologies that underpin mobile internet: frequency bands, special antenna formats, protocols, etc. But the main things we need to know in the context of this article are:

• In theory, connection speeds can reach up to 1 Gbit/s download and 500 Mbit/s upload for LTE-Advanced. In most cases, we’re talking about the mass segment – LTE Cat. 4 – where speeds are up to 150 Mbit/s down and up to 50 Mbit/s up. In practice, due to varying base station load, the real bandwidth usually ranges from 10–30 Mbit/s (depending on region and provider), but it can drop to as low as 1 Mbit/s. In any case, for working with most text-based websites (as long as we’re not talking about streaming services), this bandwidth is more than enough.
• IP addresses are assigned dynamically. A special router called the PGW is responsible for this. Simply turning a device off and on again does not always result in an IP change.
• Since there aren’t enough IPv4 addresses, the router operates similarly to NAT. As a result, several clients with different devices can be connected behind a single address, roughly like in your local Wi-Fi network, except the number of clients can be very large.
• If a client physically moves between base stations, their IP address may remain “static,” because the connection is simply handed over from one station to another, while the exit point (the PGW / PDN-Gateway node) stays the same.
• At the same time, if the client is inactive for a long period, then when they reconnect (resume activity), they may automatically receive a new IP. No movement between base stations is required. It’s all up to the PGW / PDN-Gateway.

As a result, because a large number of independent clients (hundreds or even thousands) can in reality be working behind a single mobile operator IP, security systems treat mobile connections with maximum caution – putting such an IP address on a blacklist could affect many innocent users. Blocking a mobile IP is like shooting yourself in the foot.

For this reason, mobile 4G proxies don’t so much look “more real” as they are effectively forced to be ignored by anti-fraud systems and WAFs. From this follows an important conclusion: the most trusted proxies for web scraping are mobile ones. And this “trust factor” outweighs all the other drawbacks of mobile 4G proxies: speed drops, random disconnects, and so on.

Advantages and disadvantages of mobile proxies.

Residential vs Mobile Proxies for Web Scraping

By classic residential proxies, we usually mean proxies that operate in home user networks (here we’re talking about both real and fake residential proxies). In other words, their IP addresses belong to home internet providers. Although strictly speaking, mobile proxies could also be classified as residential, since a proxy on a mobile device runs as a resident application.

Nevertheless, because of everything described above, it makes sense to treat mobile 4G proxies as a separate group.

If we compare residential proxies to mobile ones head-to-head, we can highlight the following key differences:

Comparison table: Residential vs mobile proxies

Advantages and disadvantages of residential proxies.

How to Use Mobile Proxies for Long-Running Scraping

Mobile proxies move to the forefront for web scraping when you’re running into advanced protection systems too often. In other words, when you need to work with A-class web services and sites: social networks, search engines, marketplaces, and the like.

But it’s important to remember that mobile 4G/5G proxies solve only one part of the puzzle – they increase trust and reduce the risk of being blocked. They do not guarantee a 100% success rate. Because of this, it’s crucial to build the rest of your scraping strategy and mechanisms properly.

Below, we’ll go over the key nuances.

Session Management and Rotation with 4G Mobile Proxies

It’s important to remember that when you’re using web scraping proxies over a mobile connection, the IP can change without any action on your side – simply due to the specifics of internal routing. Still, you should try to keep the connection alive as long as possible when this matters for building trust and for the task at hand. The clearest example is working with data after logging into an account. If you use rotation based on the “one request – one IP” principle, the anti-fraud system will very quickly block the entire account.

Therefore, to add “naturalness,” it’s important not only to work correctly with cookies, CSRF tokens, and other digital fingerprint attributes, but also to try to obtain new mobile 4G proxies during automatic rotation from the same provider’s network, in the same city/location, and ideally with the same ASN number. By default, it makes sense to choose sticky sessions here. They will be held for as long as technically possible.

Even if IPs do change, it will look like a user naturally moving between base stations or just dynamic rotation managed by the PGW / PDN-Gateway. This won’t attract much attention from protection systems.

At the same time, if you’re working with a target site without authorization, a more logical approach is to rotate proxies for web scraping with every new request or on a short time interval. That way, multiple connections and a large volume of typical requests can remain unnoticed. From the protection systems’ point of view, these will look like new, independent visits from different clients and devices. But it’s important to remember that a site can still identify users by cookies and other attributes. So, along with IP rotation, you also need to rotate the digital fingerprint (browser profile).

Most major mobile proxy providers offer the following rotation options:

• by timer (delay set in seconds, arbitrarily or chosen from a predefined list);
• on every new request;
• by link or via an API call;
• no rotation (maximum hold time – those same “sticky” sessions).

As for the logic of selecting new addresses, this can be:

• choosing an IP from the full pool of available ones (at the provider’s discretion);
• from a specific city or even from the pool of a specific mobile operator (in some cases tied to an ASN);
• waiting for the return of the same IP address (proxy).

Avoiding Common Mistakes

The most common mistake is treating mobile 4G proxies the same way as server-side proxies. No real mobile client can send a large volume of requests in a short period of time. Be patient and use natural delays, including randomized pauses.

You also need to be extremely careful with cookies, the user agent, and other digital fingerprint attributes. If you’re connecting through a mobile proxy server, the client parameters should look appropriate: the browser should identify itself as mobile, have a matching screen/window resolution, and so on.

More on how to scrape without getting blocked.

Costs, Limits, and Risk Management

As mentioned above, mobile 4G proxies have their own specifics: they are expensive and unstable. This naturally introduces certain risks. But if you understand those risks, you can plan a strategy to mitigate them.

For example, to minimize costs, you can use pay-as-you-go billing or purchase small traffic packages (strictly aligned with your actual consumption). What you definitely shouldn’t do is save money by choosing low-quality proxies – they’ll suffer from poor stability and low connection speeds, which will nullify all their advantages.

Connection stability can be smoothed out through the right rotation logic. It’s enough to choose a proxy service with reverse connection (backconnect proxies). In that case, proxies are connected to the scraper only once, and rotation and replacement of exit IPs fall entirely under the provider’s responsibility. For the client, this process is invisible.

For working with large traffic volumes where maximum connection stability is critical, it’s worth considering server (datacenter) or residential (home) proxies instead.

Advantages and disadvantages of server/datacenter proxies.

Scraping Use Cases Where 4G Mobile Proxies Shine

Situations where mobile 4G proxies will be most effective:

• Scraping websites with the strongest anti-bot protection. This includes social networks, search engines, large online stores, marketplaces, and classified services. This way, you can save time and budget that would otherwise be spent solving CAPTCHA manually.
• Managing accounts at scale (multi-accounting) and performing SMM tasks, since working in web services after authorization requires maximum trust and caution.
• Testing mobile applications and PWAs.
• Collecting data from sites that have a separate mobile version.
• Tasks related to precise personalization and targeting. This is especially relevant for regional streaming libraries, search engine result pages, and localized versions of major online platforms.
• Monitoring local prices and product availability for e-commerce and as part of comprehensive market analysis.

Conclusion

Connecting through mobile 4G proxies is perceived by protection systems as completely natural, especially if the creator of the scraper has taken care to mimic realistic digital fingerprints and chosen the right location for the exit IP address.

But even if an anti-fraud system suspects something, it will most likely avoid taking drastic measures, simply because of how mobile networks are built: hundreds or even thousands of real users can be working behind the same IP address at the same time.

Mobile 4G/5G proxies do have their drawbacks – they’re expensive and can randomly “drop” the connection. You can work around these disadvantages by choosing a quality provider with fair pricing, convenient billing, reliable proxies, and a backconnect setup.

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