Start With Internet: Pick the ISP Months Before You Move

Moving Your Office Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Phones): Part 1 of 8

You've found a new office. The lease is signed or close to it. Someone has started a spreadsheet with moving tasks: furniture, keys, cleaning, mail forwarding, all the logistics that come with relocating a business. Somewhere on that list, probably near the bottom, is a line item that says something like "set up internet and phones at new office."

That line item should be at the top. Not because internet is more important than having desks and chairs, but because it has the longest lead time of anything on the list, and if it's not handled early, it will become the thing that delays everything else.

Why internet takes so long

When you order residential internet, the provider usually shows up within a week. Business internet can work on a similar timeline if you're ordering cable or shared fiber that's already available at the address. But that's the best case.

If the connection type you need isn't already available at your new address, things get slower. Dedicated fiber (DIA) typically takes 30 to 90 days from order to activation, and that timeline starts after the provider completes a site survey and confirms the order. If construction is required, meaning fiber needs to be physically built to your building or suite, the timeline can extend to 120 days or more depending on permitting, construction scheduling, and weather.

That means if you sign a lease for a new office and start your internet order the same week, you might have dedicated fiber ready by the time you move in. If you wait until a month before the move to start thinking about it, you could be sitting in a beautiful new office with no internet for weeks after move day.

Even for simpler installations like cable or shared fiber, there are potential delays. The provider might need to schedule a technician. The building might need a new cable run from the street to your suite. The building owner might need to grant access for the installation. These things take days to weeks, not hours.

Check availability before you sign the lease

Ideally, you should check internet availability at a prospective office location before you commit to the lease. Discovering after you've signed a three year lease that the building has no fiber, the only available cable provider has terrible reviews, and the nearest DSL central office is four miles away is a bad surprise that could have been avoided.

Checking availability isn't as simple as searching one provider's website. As covered in the Getting the Internet Right series, the carrier landscape at any given address is fragmented. There might be multiple providers that can serve the address, including regional carriers and competitive providers that don't show up in a basic Google search. The building itself might have an exclusive arrangement with a specific provider, or it might have fiber from a provider you've never heard of that was installed when the building was constructed.

Two buildings on the same street might have completely different connectivity options. The one with better internet infrastructure could save you thousands of dollars per year and prevent the daily frustration that comes with an inadequate connection. Checking with multiple providers, including regional carriers and competitive providers that don't advertise to consumers, gives you the fullest picture of what's available. Don't rely on a single provider's availability checker. The carrier landscape at any given address is more fragmented than most people realize.

What to order and when

Once you've confirmed availability and chosen a provider, the ordering timeline depends on the connection type.

Cable or shared fiber: Order 4 to 6 weeks before your target move date. This gives enough buffer for scheduling, any unexpected building access issues, and a week of testing before the move.

Dedicated fiber (DIA) where fiber already exists at the building: Order 60 to 90 days before your target move date. Even when fiber infrastructure is in place, provisioning a new DIA circuit involves site surveys, contract processing, circuit testing, and scheduling the turn-up.

Dedicated fiber where construction is needed: Order as early as possible, ideally 90 to 120 days or more before the move. Construction timelines are the least predictable because they depend on permitting from the city, contractor availability, and physical conditions at the site.

Fixed wireless: Order 3 to 4 weeks before the move. Installation requires a site survey (to verify line of sight) and antenna installation, which is faster than running cable but still needs scheduling.

Cellular backup: Order 2 to 3 weeks before. Cellular failover devices are typically shipped and self-installed, so the lead time is mostly shipping and account activation.

If you're planning a redundant setup with two connections from different providers (which we recommend for businesses that can't afford extended downtime, as covered in the redundancy post), you need to manage both timelines independently. Order the slower one first.

The overlap period

There's a period during an office move where you need connectivity at both the old location and the new location. Your team is still working at the old office while the new one is being set up. Phones need to work at both locations during the transition. Cloud applications need to be accessible from both.

Plan for at least two to four weeks of overlap where you're paying for internet at both locations. This overlap gives you time to test the new connection, set up phones and equipment at the new location, and resolve any issues before you cut over.

Cutting the old connection too early is one of the most common mistakes in office moves. If the new internet has an installation delay, or if the new connection has problems that weren't caught during initial testing, you need the old connection as a fallback. An extra month of paying for two connections is cheap insurance compared to a week of your entire team being unable to work.

Test before move day

Once the new connection is installed, test it thoroughly before moving any production equipment or people. Run speed tests at different times of day. Test latency and jitter. Run a VoIP quality test to measure whether the new connection can actually support voice traffic, and use a bandwidth calculator to confirm it has enough headroom for your expected call volume. If possible, set up a phone at the new location and make test calls to verify voice quality. Check both internal connectivity (can devices on the network talk to each other) and external connectivity (is the internet connection performing as expected).

If you're using a managed firewall or router, configure it at the new location and verify that all the rules and settings are working before the move. Discovering a firewall misconfiguration on move day, when everyone is trying to get set up and start working, is a stressful and avoidable problem.

This testing period is also when you'll discover any building specific issues: a flaky cable run from the building entrance to your suite, WiFi interference from neighboring tenants, or an unexpected network configuration requirement from the building's management.

What to put in the lease

While you're negotiating the lease for the new space, there are several telecom related items worth addressing:

Access for providers. Confirm that you have the right to bring in any internet provider of your choosing. Some buildings have exclusive agreements with a single provider, which limits your options and can result in higher prices.

Pathway access. Confirm that there's a clear pathway for running cable from the building's point of entry (the demarc, or demarcation point) to your suite. In multi-tenant buildings, this might involve running cable through shared spaces, risers, or conduit that the building owner controls.

Roof access for wireless. If you plan to use fixed wireless (either as a primary or backup connection), you may need antenna access on the building's roof or exterior wall. Confirm that the lease allows this and whether there are any restrictions or fees.

Construction permission. If fiber needs to be built to the building, confirm that the building owner will permit the construction and won't charge excessive fees for access.

These may seem like minor details during lease negotiations, but they can become major obstacles later if they're not addressed. A building that won't allow you to bring in your preferred ISP, or that charges a $5,000 riser access fee, can significantly change the cost and viability of your connectivity plan.

The bottom line

Internet and phone connectivity is the longest lead time item in most office moves, and it's the one that everything else depends on. You can't set up cloud workstations without internet. You can't configure phones without the connection they'll run on. You can't test anything without the infrastructure being in place.

Start early, verify availability before committing to a location, order the connection as soon as you know where you're going, build in an overlap period, and test before move day. The businesses that handle office moves smoothly are the ones that treat connectivity as a planning priority rather than an afterthought.

Next up: What to Do When the New Building Doesn't Have What You Need, on handling the gap between what's available and what your business requires.