The Short Version
- Leased line installations take 30 to 90 days — order before you sign the lease, not after you collect the keys
- Data cabling before partitions and ceilings close costs a fraction of the retrofit price
- WiFi dead zones are always cheaper to prevent than fix — access point placement needs planning before furniture arrives
- CCTV and access control wiring is ten times easier on a building site than in an occupied office
A business takes new premises in February with a move-in date in April. They order the broadband connection in March. The leased line installation takes eleven weeks. The team arrives on a Thursday, works off mobile hotspots, and six weeks later the fit-out project manager still cannot explain why nobody mentioned the lead time.
This is the most common and most avoidable problem in a business relocation. The second most common: data cabling quoted at £95 per point during the fit-out, then quoted at £280 per point six months later when the ceilings are boarded and the walls are plastered. New premises give you a window to get the infrastructure right. That window closes when the builders leave.
Sort Your Internet Connection First
Broadband for business comes in two forms. Consumer-grade FTTP or FTTC connections (standard fibre broadband) can activate in one to five working days. Leased lines, which deliver symmetric speeds and a guaranteed uptime SLA, require a physical circuit survey, provisioning, and engineer installation. The lead time runs from 30 days on the short end to 90 days on longer routes, particularly in rural or semi-rural Northamptonshire locations where the nearest exchange or cabinet is some distance away.
Most businesses running more than ten people need a leased line. The asymmetric speeds on standard broadband (fast download, slow upload) create problems the moment you move to cloud storage, VoIP calls, or video conferencing as your primary tools. A 1Gbps symmetric leased line removes that constraint entirely.
Order the line before you sign the lease if the timescales allow. At minimum, submit the order within the first week of taking the premises. Ask the ISP for a survey appointment and a confirmed provisioning date, and treat that date as a hard dependency on your move-in timeline.
A 4G or 5G router makes a viable fallback connection while a leased line is provisioned. Put one on order at the same time as the leased line. It costs around £40 to £80 per month on a rolling SIM contract and keeps your team functional on move-in day even if the main line is delayed.
Structured Cabling: Do It Before the Walls Close
Structured cabling is the physical backbone of your network: the cables that run from each desk, meeting room, and equipment position back to a central patch panel in your comms room. Get it right at this stage and your network performs reliably for 15 to 20 years with nothing more than port configuration changes. Miss the window and every future change involves chasing cables through finished walls and ceilings.
Cat6A is the current standard
Cat6A supports 10Gbps to 100 metres. Cat6 supports 1Gbps at that distance and 10Gbps only to 55 metres. For most offices, Cat6 covers every practical requirement today. Cat6A future-proofs against 10Gbps-to-the-desk switches becoming standard in the next decade. The price difference per point is small compared to the cost of a retrofit.
Run two cables to every position
Run two data points to every desk position: one for the workstation, one for a phone, second monitor, or future use. Run two points to every meeting room: one for a conferencing device, one for a laptop connection. The additional cable cost at install is minimal. Cabling a second point into a finished room later costs £150 to £250 per drop.
What the installation covers
A complete structured cabling installation includes: cable containment (trunking or cable trays running through ceiling voids and risers), individual cable runs to each position, termination at RJ45 wall plates, and termination at a patch panel in the comms room. All runs should be tested and certified on completion, with a test report showing pass/fail and cable length for each circuit.
- Every desk position (two points each)
- Every meeting room (ceiling for PoE display, wall for laptop)
- Every access point position (ceiling-mounted, PoE)
- Every CCTV camera position (IP cameras run on Cat6)
- Every access control door reader (power and data)
- Reception desk, kitchen, and break-out areas
- Server room or comms room rack position
WiFi Coverage: Plan Before the Furniture Arrives
Access points mounted in the right position deliver seamless coverage. Access points placed where the cabling happened to end up deliver dead zones, drop-outs, and support calls. The difference is planning before cable routes are fixed.
Conduct a site survey first
A wireless site survey maps signal propagation across your floor plan. It identifies obstacles that kill signal: thick masonry walls, steel partitions, lift shafts, plant rooms, and reflective surfaces. The output is a map of access point positions and channel assignments that delivers the coverage you need. Access points go on the ceiling, ceiling-mounted on a short cable drop, and powered over the same Cat6 run that carries the data. No separate power circuit required.
Business-grade access points only
Consumer WiFi routers and budget access points sold in supermarkets use shared processor time across all connected clients. At 20 or 30 simultaneous users, throughput drops and latency rises. Business-grade access points (Ubiquiti UniFi, Cisco Meraki, Aruba Instant) use separate radio processors for 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, support band steering, and handle 50 to 200 simultaneous clients per AP without degradation.
A common mistake: three or four cheap access points placed in corners and connected to a consumer router. The coverage looks complete on paper. In practice, devices associate with the wrong AP, roam poorly between them, and the whole network runs through a consumer router processor rated for home use. Two well-placed business-grade APs outperform six poorly placed consumer units.
Setting Up Your Comms Room
Every business premises above around ten workstations needs a dedicated room for the network equipment. This is where the ISP line terminates, where the firewall and core switch live, where the patch panels connect, and where any server or NAS sits. Getting it wrong means overheating equipment, failed hardware, and a network that goes down on hot days.
The four requirements
Rack space. A half-height open frame rack (12U to 18U) covers most small-to-medium office deployments. A full 42U closed rack suits larger environments with servers. Buy more rack space than you need today. Adding a rack later means moving everything.
Dedicated power circuit. Network equipment should run on its own circuit, separate from general office power. This prevents power-hungry equipment (laser printers, coffee machines) causing voltage fluctuations that cycle switches and routers. Put in a dedicated 16A circuit during the fit-out.
UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). A 1000VA UPS on the network rack protects switches, firewalls, and routers from power spikes and gives 15 to 20 minutes of runtime during a power cut. This allows clean server shutdown rather than an abrupt power loss that corrupts drives and configurations.
Cooling. A rack full of switches generates heat. A comms room without ventilation reaches temperatures that trigger thermal protection shutdowns within months. A single wall-mounted air conditioning unit (or even a dedicated fan with outside-air ventilation) keeps the room below 25°C year-round. Do not use a storage cupboard as a comms room without addressing cooling.
Security Systems: Wire Them During the Fit-Out
CCTV, access control, and intruder alarms all require cabling. Running that cabling on a live, occupied office means lifting floor coverings, chasing through plastered walls, and working around staff. On a building site, the same cable runs take a fraction of the time and cost.
CCTV
IP cameras run on the same Cat6 cabling as your data network. Plan camera positions that cover all external doors, the car park, the reception desk, and any high-value storage areas before cable routes are fixed. Each camera draws power from the network switch via PoE. The NVR (network video recorder) sits in the comms room. Cable containment shared with the data cabling reduces cost.
Access control
Door reader wiring runs to the door frame: a cable for the reader, a cable for the lock, and a cable back to the controller panel. On a building site, these run through the door frame during installation. In a finished office, the same cable run means surface-mounted trunking or difficult voids work. If you plan to control three or more doors, wire them all during the fit-out even if you activate them in phases.
Intruder alarms
Alarm sensor cabling (PIR detectors, door contacts, panic buttons) runs in the ceiling void and wall channels. The alarm panel sits in a secured location in the comms room or a locked cabinet. Alarm cabling installed before false ceilings close is concealed. Alarm cabling installed afterwards runs surface-mounted or through conduit, visible on walls and ceilings.
If LNS handles the structured cabling, CCTV, access control, and alarm installation, all cable runs are planned together to avoid conflicts and share containment where possible. That reduces both installation time and total cost compared to four separate contractors working independently.
Frequently Asked Questions
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