When should IT planning start for an office move?

As early as possible — ideally as soon as the new space is confirmed, and before the fit-out begins. Cabling, network design and internet provisioning all have lead times, and the cabling especially is far cheaper to do before the walls close. Leaving IT to the last few weeks is the most common and most costly move mistake.

How far ahead should we order internet for the new office?

Business internet can take weeks to provision, sometimes longer if new lines are required. Order it as soon as the new address is confirmed. A move held up because the internet isn't live yet is entirely avoidable with early ordering.

What's the most commonly forgotten thing in an office IT move?

Lead times — internet provisioning, cabling, and hardware ordering all take longer than people expect. The second is documentation — without a record of how the old office was set up, rebuilding it at the new site becomes guesswork. Plan both early.

Moving Offices in the GTA? Your IT Relocation Checklist

An office move is exciting right up until the first morning in the new space, when someone discovers the internet isn’t live, half the desks have no network, and the phones don’t work. IT is where office moves quietly go wrong, because so much of it has long lead times and depends on decisions made months earlier. This checklist keeps your network off the critical path.

As soon as the new space is confirmed

The single biggest mistake in office moves is starting IT planning too late. The moment the new address is signed, three clocks start ticking:

Order business internet. Provisioning can take weeks, and longer if new lines need to be installed. This is the most common cause of a delayed move, and it’s entirely avoidable by ordering early.
Plan the cabling. Structured cabling is dramatically cheaper to install before the fit-out closes the walls. Get the design done early so it’s coordinated with the other trades, not squeezed in at the end.
Book the survey. A site survey of the new space establishes coverage, cabling paths and the comms-room plan — the foundation everything else builds on.

During the fit-out

While the new space is being built out:

Get the cabling in. Cat6A backbone where it counts, drops to every desk and device location with headroom for growth, fibre between floors if needed — all certified and labelled.
Set up the comms room. Racks, power, cooling and the switching that will run the office.
Design the wireless. Access-point placement mapped to the new floor plan, with segmentation for staff, guests and devices planned in from the start.
Plan the phones and AV. Whether it’s VoIP, boardroom AV or digital signage, these need cabling and network readiness too — decide now, not on move day.

Two to three weeks before the move

Confirm internet is live at the new site and tested — not just “scheduled.”
Document the old office. How is it configured? What connects where? Without a record, rebuilding at the new site is guesswork. If you don’t have documentation, this is the time to capture it.
Inventory hardware. What’s moving, what’s being replaced, what’s being retired. Old switches and access points are often worth replacing rather than relocating.
Plan the cutover sequence. What order does everything come up in at the new site, and who’s responsible for each piece.
Notify your providers. Internet, phone, and any monitored services need to know the address is changing.

Move week

Stage and label everything so it lands in the right place at the new office.
Stand up the network first. Switching, Wi-Fi and internet should be live and tested before desks are populated — the network is the thing everything else depends on.
Test before staff arrive. Every drop, every access point, the phones, the printers, the internet. Finding a dead port at 8 a.m. Monday with a full office waiting is the scenario this whole checklist exists to prevent.
Keep the old site running until the new one is verified, if your lease overlap allows. A fallback beats a hard cutover with no safety net.

First days in the new office

Verify coverage with people actually working — real usage reveals gaps a quiet test won’t.
Confirm segmentation and security are configured correctly at the new site, not left flat “for now.”
Set up monitoring so any teething issues surface as alerts you can act on quickly.
Keep the documentation — as-built cabling records, port maps and network config — for the next time something changes.

The things people forget

A few items reliably get missed:

Lead times on internet, cabling and hardware — all longer than expected
The comms room at the new site — power, cooling and space, not an afterthought closet
Guest and IoT segmentation — easy to skip in the rush, painful to retrofit
Documentation — both capturing the old setup and recording the new one
A real cutover plan — with an owner for each step and an order of operations

The bottom line

An office move puts a hard deadline on a lot of work with long lead times, which is exactly why IT should be planned first and started early — not squeezed in during the final weeks. Order internet the day the address is confirmed, get the cabling in before the walls close, document the old setup, and stand the network up before the staff arrive. Do that and moving day is uneventful, which is the highest praise an IT move can earn.

Planning an office move anywhere in the GTA? We handle the whole IT side — cabling, network, wireless and cutover — so it’s live and tested before your team walks in. Get in touch early and we’ll build the plan around your move date.