Level27 may not position itself as a traditional carrier, its role in Belgium’s infrastructure landscape is anything but marginal. Initially a hosting company, Level27 evolved into a fully managed infrastructure provider, built on a clear philosophy: no hype, no unnecessary complexity, and full control over technology. “Performance is the Olympic minimum,” says CTO Thomas Woidt. “If you’re not fast and always online, you shouldn’t even be in this market. What really matters is everything around it: how you support your customers, how proactive you are, and how close you stay to their business.”
Thomas Woidt: “We’re probably the odd one out in your list of carriers you put in the spotlight, because we’re not a pure carrier. We started as a hosting company, and for a long time we were very technology-driven. But at a certain point, we realised something was missing: the customer aspect. So, our proposition today is simple: we make sure our customers are ‘relaxed online’. That means their platforms are always available, performant, and deliver a smooth experience to their end-users.”
“We typically operate in a three-way model: us, the partner (often a web agency or IT integrator) and the end customer. With the addition of Xenius mid 2025, we’ve strengthened that second part: supporting IT partners who manage environments for their own customers. Our customer base is very diverse: from large Belgian webshops and enterprise IT environments to media-heavy projects like festivals.”
“What really differentiates us, is everything around performance: customer intimacy, operational excellence and a very hands-on way of working. We don’t do first line, second line, third line support. When you call us, you get an engineer who can actually fix the problem. Our larger customers even communicate with us directly through Slack channels. That speed and proximity matter.”
“We’re also extremely proactive. We want to detect issues before the customer even notices them. Not after. And then there’s our technological independence. We built our own platform, end-to-end. No VMware, no dependency on commercial stacks. That means we control everything, from hardware to application, and we’re not exposed to external pricing shocks.”
“We don’t follow hype cycles. If it doesn’t bring value to the customer, we don’t do it”
“At the core, we deliver fully managed infrastructure. That includes connectivity, data center environments, virtualisation and everything on top. We also operate our own network, with fibre across a large part of Belgium, but we rarely sell connectivity as a standalone service. It’s always part of a broader managed solution.”
“With Xenius, we’ve added managed colocation. Customers can bring their own hardware and we take care of everything around it: networking, monitoring, operations. Again, fully managed. We don’t believe in selling ‘bare metal’ services without responsibility. If we’re involved, we want to make sure it actually works.”
“The biggest shift we see is that fibre is becoming a commodity. The speed itself is no longer a differentiator. Availability is. That creates confusion for customers. Everything looks the same: fibre is fibre. But the real difference is in how it’s delivered and managed. We’ve also seen a lot of hype cycles: cloud, SD-WAN, AI… Honestly, a lot of the arguments don’t hold. Cloud is often sold as cheaper. That’s simply not true. SD-WAN is great technology, but it doesn’t replace the need for high-quality connectivity. You still need solid infrastructure underneath.”
“AI is also interesting of course, but we’re pragmatic. We see clear productivity gains: teams can be 30 to 50% more efficient. But from an infrastructure perspective, the impact is still limited today. At the same time, we see massive investments in data centers and serious challenges around hardware availability and pricing. So the question is: what’s the actual business model behind all that?”
“Another major trend, an increasing trend actually, is data sovereignty. More and more customers want their data in Europe, and we’re even starting to see hesitation towards US vendors. That shift is real, and it’s accelerating.”
“Technology is evolving fast. But the fundamentals haven’t changed: it still needs to work, and it needs to make sense”
“Customer intimacy is one of the main reasons we’ve been successful. We don’t have hundreds of developers. So we pick our battles. And one of them is how we work with customers. Sustainability is also important, but again: we approach it pragmatically. Energy is a huge part of our data center cost, about one third today, and we’ve seen it go up to two thirds during the energy crisis. So energy independence and price stability are critical. That’s where partners like LCL really make a difference.”
“And I’m not talking about green certificates. The crux is real investments in energy infrastructure. That allows you to smooth out price shocks and protect customers. At the same time, sustainability is also about societal impact. Data centers need to contribute to the local economy: jobs, innovation, partnerships… Otherwise, public perception can turn very quickly.”
“What we value is the partnership. LCL doesn’t just sell space, they actively invest in energy resilience and sustainability. That directly strengthens our own proposition. In the end, it’s simple: LCL provides the foundation, we build on top of it, and together we make sure the customer doesn’t have to worry about anything.”
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