A long-term enterprise client approached THIRD SPECTRUM with a deceptively simple request: determine which of their public IP subnets could be sold. On the surface, it sounded like an inventory exercise. In practice, it was far more complex. Over decades, the client had acquired millions of IPv4 addresses spread across thousands of subnets, the result of multiple mergers and network expansions with little central oversight.
Some allocations were buried in outdated configuration files, others were still referenced in customer premises equipment (CPE) such as routers, firewalls, and edge devices, and a few were effectively lost in limbo. The infrastructure included equipment from Juniper, Arista, and Cisco, with fragmented records across the environment. Teams were unsure whether a subnet seen in a config file was active, abandoned, or critical to operations.
With IPv4 market value climbing, the leadership team wanted clarity. They needed to identify idle space that could be monetized without service disruption. But without a reliable, live inventory or historical tracking, a manual audit wasn’t feasible. They required an automated, scalable solution that could bring accuracy and confidence to an ISP-scale IP audit.
October 2023
Telecommunications
Revenue Generation
THIRD SPECTRUM engineered a custom application purpose-built for this challenge, designed to bridge the gaps left by traditional audits and provide a complete view of the client’s public IP landscape.
This structured methodology gave the client a level of visibility that had never been possible before.
The outcome was a comprehensive IP utilization dashboard serving as a single source of truth for the client’s global public IP holdings. Leadership could filter views by region, business unit, or routing domain. Subnet-level usage reports were generated with contextual labels indicating how each block was being used and where.
The solution didn’t just stop at inventory, it delivered monetization intelligence. Idle or low-risk subnets were grouped with projected market valuations. Renumberable ranges were scored by migration complexity with consolidation recommendations. Legacy references in DNS zones or firewall configs were highlighted for remediation.
By replacing spreadsheets and guesswork with an automated platform, THIRD SPECTRUM gave the client a clean, reliable, and monetization-ready picture of their IPv4 estate.
The results were transformative. The client uncovered over $50 million in IPv4 assets that could be sold or consolidated without operational risk. Every block was validated through routing confirmation, configuration checks, and device-level verification, no assumptions, just actionable data.
Beyond financial gain, the client reduced overall network complexity, freeing engineering teams from constant manual audits and firefighting. They gained a long-term asset management advantage: a clean, accurate, and live view of IP ownership. This positioned them to move faster on monetization strategies, consolidation efforts, and even future IPv6 transitions.
By turning public IP sprawl into structured intelligence, THIRD SPECTRUM empowered the client to maximize value while minimizing risk.
