The french internet provider free.fr used to do this by default. I'm using another one nowadays which also let me have a static IP https://assistance.free.fr/articles/disposer-dune-adresse-ip...
Telia actually gives you both an IPv4 address and an IPv6 block which is pretty nice.
Which 99.999% of users don't do, ever.
So when was the last time you checked for patched-but-not-auto-applied vulnerabilities in your (almost certainly ISP-provided) router?
ISPs don't want things to randomly break for consumers, so are likely to avoid rolling out updates that could potentially go wrong, but all code has vulnerabilities, and this controls access to your internal network.
The only way ISPs would, would be if their customers routinely turned their router off while they’re not using any electronic devices. But even the older generation I know (80+ years old, no “smart” devices apart from a Samsung tablet or a laptop, depending on the individual) don’t turn their routers off. It’s just not something people do.
In fact if anything, the kind of people who might want to are likely the same kind of people who would get scared to in case it broke something.
The only class of people I think who might, would be ultra tin foil hat paranoid people. And that’s certainly not going to be a large demographic.
Well then 99.9999% of the people don't really need it. But if one decides to run their own mail server at home (to save those 5-10-20 per month for their mailbox) it's worth the trade-off.
> Not to mention the privacy issues of always using the same address.
For me that's the thing. Privacy AND Security. Especially when you got something 'listening'/waiting.
Most normal households don't get static IPs, but on the other hand they change very infrequently, so they are practically static.
Most people have exactly one device directly connected to the internet (their router), and that router has hours of downtime per year at most. Most of that downtime (if there is any) is due to electricity outages, and so correlated with downtime of other consumers. When there are no outages, very few consumers can be left without an IP address. I'd expect the savings in IP space to be <1%, although I have no hard data here and might be missing something.
This doesn't apply to cellular carriers, there are plenty of subscribers who maintain their plans but disconnect often. This includes people living abroad (who normally use another country's SIM), or even people who turn off their work phones on weekends.
Not every provider, but some do.
We're relatively unique compared to a lot of countries though, where we have an infrastructure provider that serves basically the whole country with very good to tolerable internet (mostly) - Openreach.
Any ISP can sign up to use Openreach's network & a backhaul provider for providing services, and they usually get handover from their backhaul provider in London. Means we have a lot more small/niche ISPs that can still cover the entire country, and provide unique features - like static IPs or even blocks of static IPs.
There are alternative providers too (lots of 'alt-nets', and virgin media) - they're mostly not so open, though.
They won't admit it's static, but it is. I've had the same IP for three years since moving into this house. In that time, I've had power outages lasting for days, IP was still the same. I've replaced my router and the assigned IP didn't change. The only way it can change is if they replace their media converter "fiber jack" or you call or go to their store to ask them to change your IP.