About Netwise

Netwise is an independent data center operator providing colocation, connectivity and managed infrastructure services from its facilities in London. Its customers include SMEs, technology businesses, larger enterprises, service providers and organizations that need private data halls.

Founded in 2009, Netwise has grown into an established London data center operator with a team of 13 and an expanding physical estate. Its London East facility was initially designed around 224 rack footprints, with a further 168 rack positions added as part of its expansion. The company has also secured additional premises and power capacity for future growth.

That balance matters. Netwise is expanding its physical infrastructure without letting every new commercial opportunity create another labor-intensive process for its team.

The challenge: valuable IPv4 space was sitting idle

Over years of operating its own network, Netwise built an IPv4 estate larger than its current operational requirement. The company did not need more address space. It needed a practical way to generate income from prefixes it already held but was not using.

The cost was opportunity cost: an unused IPv4 prefix may be valuable, but it produces no return while it sits idle.

Monetization only made sense if it stayed operationally light. A team of 13 was already running and expanding a physical data center estate, and the company did not want IPv4 leasing to become a separate operation that needed constant manual work.

Netwise also had a useful benchmark. It was already listing excess IPv4 space through another provider. That route worked and set a reference point for both price and utilization, but take-up was comparatively slow.

Why Netwise added IPbnb

IPbnb approached Netwise directly. Because the company already had prefixes listed elsewhere, it evaluated IPbnb as an additional route to market rather than a replacement for its existing provider.

Price mattered, but it was not the deciding factor. Netwise already had a clear view of the market value of its space. Its priorities were:

• access to active tenant demand

• simple administration

• effective abuse management

• confidence in the platform operator

• responsive communication and support

The commercial logic was simple: similar per-IP pricing is worth more when prefixes are leased quickly instead of waiting on the market.

From screening to an active lease

Netwise listed ten prefixes on IPbnb, mostly /22 and /21 blocks. The process had four main stages:

1. Portfolio review. Netwise identified the excess prefixes it wanted to make available through an additional channel.

2. Reputation screening. Prefixes were checked for blocklist and reputation issues before marketplace approval.

3. Onboarding and listing. Clean prefixes with a good reputation were added to the marketplace in minutes.

4. Matching and administration. IPbnb exposed the approved prefixes to its tenant base and handled the ongoing leasing workflow, reducing the work required from Netwise.

Once a prefix was onboarded and approved, it ran with very little ongoing administration from the Netwise team.

A deliberate checkpoint: reputation screening

The fast onboarding Netwise describes applies to clean address space. A prefix that appears fully or partially on a real-time blocklist, or shows other signs of poor reputation, needs further investigation and cannot move straight onto the marketplace.

That distinction matters for holders with older address estates. Even unused space can carry reputation issues from its previous use. Finding those issues before listing protects tenants and gives holders time to plan remediation before expecting the space to earn revenue.

The result: similar pricing, much faster utilization

In about two months, six of Netwise's ten listed prefixes were leased through IPbnb, approximately 60% take-up.

Through its existing route to market, Netwise had taken roughly a year to reach a comparable level of utilization at very similar per-IP pricing. IPbnb reached the same broad take-up benchmark in about one-sixth of the time, an approximately 83% shorter time to that level of utilization.

The commercial result did not come from charging more per address. It came from putting listed space to work sooner. An idle prefix generates no lease income, whatever its advertised rate.

The second result was operational. Once the prefixes were approved, Netwise needed very little ongoing administration. IPv4 monetization became an additional revenue channel without creating another labor-intensive function for its team.

Netwise chose not to disclose exact revenue figures, but the utilization comparison gives a clear measure of the platform's impact.

What's next

When these figures were supplied, four of the ten listed prefixes had not yet been leased. Netwise continues to expand its physical infrastructure, so the balance between its operational needs and excess IPv4 capacity will keep changing.

IPbnb gives the company an additional route to market for the part of its IPv4 estate that remains available to lease. If you hold idle space, see how IPv4 monetization on IPbnb works or estimate your earnings.