Moving office: plan the fibre install before you sign the lease

Why fibre takes longer than people expect

If the new building already has fibre to your floor and an existing connection point in the tenancy, a new service can be activated relatively quickly. If the building has fibre in the street but not inside, installers may need to run cable through ducts, ceilings and risers. That can need landlord or body corporate consent, a site survey, and sometimes traffic management or civil works if new ducting is required. Each of those steps adds time, and they happen in sequence. A consent sitting with a busy building manager can hold up everything else. Commercial buildings with complex shared infrastructure, new developments and older buildings with full ducts are the most common causes of long delays.

Check before you sign

When shortlisting buildings, ask the landlord or agent whether fibre is already in the building and in the specific tenancy you are considering. Ask which networks are present and where the communications room is. You can also check the address with fibre availability tools online, though these show the street, not the inside of the building. If fibre is not in the tenancy, ask the landlord to confirm in writing that they will consent to installation and allow access. Some businesses negotiate a lease clause about telecommunications access. The cost of a delayed move far outweighs a few awkward questions at viewing time.

Order early and track it

Once the lease is confirmed, order fibre straight away, even if the move is months off. Ask the provider to schedule activation for a date before move-in. Get a reference number and a contact, and check progress every week or two. If a survey or consent is needed, chase it; orders do not always move without prompting.

Build a simple move timeline working backwards from move-in day: fibre live, cabling finished, network equipment installed and tested, phones ready, then staff moved. Put a date against each step and an owner beside it, whether that is you, the landlord, the cabler or your IT provider. When one step slips, the timeline shows immediately which others are affected, so you can decide early whether to push the move date or lean on the temporary connection. Tell your IT support provider about the move at the same time, because the fibre order affects your firewall setup, phone porting, static IP changes and any site-to-site connections. Coordinating these from the start avoids a scramble in the final week.

Plan the internal network too

Fibre arrives at a single termination point. From there, you need data cabling to desks, printers, access points and phones, plus a place for the router, switch and other equipment. Arrange a cabling survey early and confirm where the fibre will be terminated. A data cabler can install points and a rack while the fitout is happening, which is much easier than after desks arrive.

Power for the network equipment, any new circuits and electrical work in the fitout must be done by a registered electrician. Coordinate the electrician, data cabler and fibre installer so they are not undoing each other's work. Good Wi-Fi coverage design is easier with the floor plan in hand before walls go up.

Have a fallback ready

Even with good planning, fibre can be late. A temporary 4G or 5G router with a business data plan can run a small office for a few weeks if coverage at the new site is reasonable. Test it at the new address before move day. Cloud phones, email and most cloud applications work fine on a temporary wireless connection, though large uploads will be slower. That same wireless router can stay on as your permanent backup connection once fibre is live, so the cost is not wasted. Configure your firewall so it fails over automatically, and keep the temporary setup documented.

Phones and numbers during a move

If you are already on a cloud phone system, your numbers simply follow you; plug the phones in at the new office or use the apps in the meantime. If you are still on copper lines or an onsite phone system tied to the old building, a move is the ideal moment to switch to a cloud system and port your numbers, so the phones are not dependent on the new building's connection being ready.

Update your registered address with the phone provider for emergency calling purposes and change the address on your website, Google Business Profile and invoices. Test calls, internet, printing and Wi-Fi on the first morning before staff arrive, and keep a short list of who to call if something is not working.