Call Your IT Partner Before You Sign the Lease

Most businesses call their IT provider about an office move a few weeks out. By then, the walls are closed, the internet order is behind, and the network closet ended up in a supply room with no ventilation. Everything after that is damage control.

The decisions that make or break a move happen during buildout. Here’s what we try to settle early.

Start 90 days out, or earlier

Internet service is the long pole. A new fiber circuit to a building that doesn’t have one can take months. Order it as soon as you know the address, and ask your IT partner to check which carriers actually serve the building before you sign anything.

Get cabling in while the walls are open

Running data cable through open studs is cheap. Fishing it through finished drywall isn’t. Walk the floor plan with your IT partner and your contractor together, mark every desk, printer, access point, camera, and TV, and add a few spare drops. You’ll use them.

Put the network closet somewhere real

It needs dedicated power, some cooling, and a door that locks. A closet that hits 95 degrees in July will shorten the life of everything in it. This is easy to plan and expensive to fix later.

Plan for two internet connections

If your business stops when the internet goes down, have a second connection from a different carrier with automatic failover. A cable line backing up fiber is a common, affordable setup.

Don’t forget the phones

Porting your existing numbers takes time and paperwork. Start that early so you’re not running on forwarded calls the first week. If you’re on hosted or Teams phones, moving is mostly about network readiness, which is one more reason to get the cabling right.

Order equipment early

Switches, firewalls, and wireless access points can have long lead times. If the new space needs new gear, order it as soon as the design is set.

Plan the move weekend and test on Sunday

Move after close on Friday. Set up over the weekend. Have someone sit at a desk Sunday afternoon and actually work: log in, print, call out, open the shared drive, connect to Wi-Fi in the conference room. Monday morning should be boring.

Update security for the new space

New addresses mean new access control, camera placement, and sometimes changes to firewall and conditional access rules. Check them before day one.

If a move is on your calendar, bring us in early. It’s the cheapest point to get it right, and it’s work we handle for clients as part of network support. If phones are part of it, our managed voice team handles the porting.