Internet setup for a move: seven questions and a handover

Most connectivity disasters are calendar problems, not technical ones. A business signs a lease, books the movers, orders a connection, and discovers in week three that the connection needs physical work nobody has scheduled. By then the old premises are gone, and the new ones have no internet.

The cure is unglamorous: ask early, bridge the gap on purpose, and refuse to sign off without a proper handover. Each step costs minutes when done before the move and days when done after it. Everything here assumes a small office ordering service for a new or moved location.

What to take away

A lead time is not a delivery date

A quoted typical lead time is the time the job takes when nothing unusual happens. Plenty of unusual things happen, and almost all of them concern access and permission rather than technology. Treat the quote as a best case.

The physical work sets the real date. If the building is already lit for fiber or cable, the job is usually a connection and a test. New cable, a new duct, or a radio link on the roof is a construction project, and much of it happens between the network and your building rather than inside it.

The route may cross land you do not own, which needs the owner's agreement. Digging in the public right of way needs a permit, usually from the state transportation department or the city or county public works department. In the US, no one breaks ground before the route is marked through 811, the national call-before-you-dig service.

Your landlord may need to approve an entry point, a duct, or a roof mount. Inside the building, riser access may be controlled by a managing agent who is not in a hurry. Each of these steps runs on its own clock, and none of them starts until somebody applies.

The asking is usually triggered by your order, not by your enquiry. That is why the order date matters more than the quote date. A move between premises adds its own sequence, which business internet migration sets out step by step.

Seven questions to put to the provider

Put these questions to the provider before you commit to a move date. The answers decide whether the order is a connection or a construction job, and that in turn decides when you can actually move. Write the answers down, with the name of the person who gave them.

• Is there existing infrastructure into this building, or does something have to be built?

Five more questions complete the seven:

The answer to the third-party land question is the one to hear out loud. The usual honest answer is that you wait, which is exactly why the temporary option matters. For every answer that depends on something, such as consent or a permit, ask for the date and for the condition it depends on, rather than accepting a general promise.

Have a bridge, and plan it deliberately

If the permanent connection will not be ready, get a temporary one to bridge the gap. Ask for its monthly cost, its activation fee and its minimum term in writing before you commit, because a bridge that runs for months is a budget line, not an expense.

A bridge does not depend on the same physical work, since radio delivery can often go live in a fraction of the time. Order it early so you can test it, not the week you move. Test it with the calls and uploads your staff run on a normal day.

Understand what the temporary service will not do, especially whether inbound connections reach you and whether a static address is available. Then remote access and allow-listed supplier connections will not surprise you on day one. Keep the answers with the order, so the next person knows.

Move the phone numbers early

If you move your phone numbers, start well before the move, because that task has the longest and least controllable timeline. Porting has its own rules, and they are stricter than most offices expect. The checks are mechanical, and a mismatch costs a restart.

Every number you move needs the current provider's account number, the service address exactly as it appears on the bill, and an authorized contact on both sides. A request that does not match is rejected, and you start again.

Under FCC rules, a simple port, meaning the same service, a new provider, and nothing else changed, must be completed within one business day of a valid request. Do not cancel the old service until the port has completed, and keep it running until the new one has proved itself.

What to sort out on your side

The provider delivers a service to a point in your building, and everything after that point is yours. It is frequently the part nobody planned. Decide where the connection lands, and make sure that place has power, is ventilated, and can be locked.

Work out whether cabling to the desks exists and is fit to use. Decide who provides the router, whether the provider or you manages it, and who may change it. Plan Wi-Fi coverage as a separate exercise, because a good circuit behind a bad wireless network produces complaints identical to a bad circuit.

FEMA's Ready guidance on business continuity planning is a short frame for deciding what the bridge has to carry. Decide by need, not convenience: the phones, the card terminal, and the email and file access your staff and your customers depend on.

Insist on a proper handover

Do not let the installer leave until these are written down and in your hands. The escalation path matters most on the day a first-line repair queue does not move.

Add any records your domain depends on, such as mail, SPF, and the VPN endpoint, so a provider change does not take your email with it. Keep the results of your own speed test, download and upload with timestamps, taken while the engineer is still on site.

Confirm what was tested at handover, not just a green light. Then run your own test before you sign off: a real call, hosted rather than attended, and a real transfer in the upload direction. Ten minutes now is worth a week of arguing later. Voip systems explains what a hosted call needs.

Record the result the same way each time. Measure against a stated method, as the FCC does in its Measuring Broadband America program, rather than with one convenient test. A stated method keeps a later comparison fair.

If the handover test fails, work outward

When a test fails on handover day, work outward before you blame anyone. Start at the device, then the office network, then the connection, then the far end. The order matters because the odds run that way and because the provider will ask you to prove each step anyway.

The same outward order applies to every later fault, and the handover record tells you who to call. For a longer method with a continuous log, see business internet troubleshooting.

Read the repair terms before you need them

Read the service-level agreement for its repair target, what counts as a missed target, and what credit follows. Check whether the target covers the whole service or only the access circuit. Do this before the order is signed.

Note when the clock starts: under most agreements it starts when you report through the specified channel, not when the problem began. When a fault does arrive, give exact times, not "most afternoons". Say up front that you tested wired and on more than one device. Get a fault reference and ask when the next update is due.

Common questions

How early should we order a connection for a new office?

Before the lease is signed if you can, and at minimum the day it is. Ask what would extend the date and get the answer in writing.

What counts as a proper handover?

Test results, the demarcation point identified, the equipment configuration, the public address, and the fault-reporting channel with a reference. Anything less and the next fault starts from nothing.

Who is responsible when the fault is inside the building?

You are, from the demarcation point inward. That is why finding and photographing it on day one is worth ten minutes.

Should we keep the bridge connection after the permanent one arrives?

Often yes, as a second path, provided it fails for different reasons. That is the cheapest resilience most small offices can buy.