Firefly - most DHCP servers operate on the same nominal principle - if your lease expires while you're still online, you get the same IP addy again to avoid mucking up pending TCP sessions (like downloads) and other address-sensitive processes. OTOH, if you shut your machine off and the lease expires while you're still offline, then odds are good that you may get a new addy when you get back online. This is mostly because someone else swiped yours while your machine was 'sleeping' - :) Dial-ups have a faster roll-over, because nobody leaves their phone line tied up 24/7 like DSL and Cable users are apt to do. An interesting tidbit... Sprint Broadband's external modem also has a DHCP server built-in to it (I have one, and DHCP can be disabled and static IP's used instead) It renews the lease every 15 minutes on it's single IP address "scope" (this means you always get the same IP addy.) They do this so that you can use multiple machines, but still comply with their policy of having only one machine access the internet at a time (they can also detect Windows NAT very easily... but not Linux masq and iptables (evil grin) ).