How to Plan Your Office Network Cabling Before You Move

An office move is one of the most complex logistical challenges a business can face. There are leases to negotiate, furniture to arrange, staff to relocate, and clients to inform. Amid all this upheaval, one element that often receives far too little attention is network cabling — the physical infrastructure that connects every computer, phone, printer, and server in your new space.

Poor network cabling planning is one of the most common causes of IT problems after an office move. Businesses that rush this step often end up with unreliable connections, insufficient data points, cables trailing across floors, and an infrastructure that cannot support future growth. Worse, retrofitting cabling after you have moved in is significantly more expensive and disruptive than getting it right from the start.

This guide walks you through every aspect of planning your office network cabling before you move, ensuring your new space is connected, reliable, and ready for the future.

Why Network Cabling Matters More Than You Think

In an age of wireless everything, you might wonder whether physical network cabling still matters. The answer is an emphatic yes. While Wi-Fi is essential for mobile devices and meeting rooms, the backbone of any reliable business network remains structured cabling. Your servers, desktop workstations, IP phones, printers, wireless access points, and CCTV cameras all depend on physical cable connections.

Wireless networks are shared bandwidth environments — the more devices connected, the slower each one becomes. Physical cabling provides dedicated bandwidth to each connected device, delivering consistent performance regardless of how many other devices are on the network. For tasks that demand reliability and speed — VoIP calls, video conferencing, large file transfers, and cloud application access — cabled connections are vastly superior.

Furthermore, every wireless access point in your office connects back to the network via a cable. If your cabling infrastructure is poorly designed, your Wi-Fi performance will suffer too, no matter how expensive your access points are.

Starting Your Cabling Plan: The Site Survey

The first and most critical step in planning your office cabling is conducting a thorough site survey of your new premises. This should happen as early as possible — ideally before you sign the lease, or at least before any fit-out work begins.

A proper site survey examines the physical layout of the building, identifies where your comms room or server cabinet will be located, maps out the routes cables will need to follow, and notes any structural obstacles such as fire walls, asbestos, or listed building restrictions. The survey should also assess the existing cabling infrastructure, if any, to determine whether it can be reused or needs replacing.

Key Questions for Your Site Survey

Where will the comms room be located? This should be a secure, well-ventilated space with adequate power supply. Ideally, it should be centrally located within the building to minimise cable run lengths. Is there existing containment (trunking, conduit, or ceiling voids) that can be used for cable routes? What is the maximum distance from the comms room to the furthest desk position? Structured cabling standards limit copper cable runs to 90 metres. Are there any building regulations or landlord requirements that affect cabling installation?

Choosing the Right Cable Standard

The type of cable you install will determine the maximum speed and reliability of your network for years to come. Getting this decision right is crucial because replacing cabling is expensive and disruptive.

Cable Type	Max Speed	Max Distance	Recommended For
Cat5e	1 Gbps	100m	Budget installations (not recommended for new builds)
Cat6	10 Gbps (up to 55m)	100m	Standard office installations
Cat6a	10 Gbps	100m	Future-proof installations (recommended)
Fibre (OM3/OM4)	40-100 Gbps	300m+	Backbone links, data centres, long distances

For most UK office environments in 2026, we strongly recommend Cat6a as the minimum standard for new installations. While Cat6 is adequate for current 1 Gbps requirements, Cat6a supports 10 Gbps across the full 100-metre distance and will comfortably handle network demands for the next 15 to 25 years. The cost difference between Cat6 and Cat6a is typically 15 to 20 per cent — a modest premium for significantly greater future-proofing.

For backbone connections between floors or between the comms room and distribution points, fibre optic cabling is the standard choice. Fibre offers vastly greater bandwidth over longer distances and is immune to electromagnetic interference.

How Many Data Points Do You Need?

One of the most common mistakes businesses make is installing too few data points. The cost of pulling an extra cable during initial installation is minimal compared to the cost of adding one later. The general rule of thumb is to install at least double the number of data points you think you need.

For a practical example, consider an office with 50 desk positions. At a minimum, you would want 100 data points at desks (two per desk), plus points for 6 to 10 wireless access points, 4 to 6 printers, 3 to 5 meeting rooms with 2 points each, CCTV cameras, and at least 15 to 20 spare points for future use. That totals approximately 140 to 150 data points — far more than the 50 a business owner might initially assume.

Designing Your Comms Room

The comms room — sometimes called the server room, IT room, or MDF (Main Distribution Frame) — is the heart of your network. Every cable in the building ultimately terminates here, and the quality of this room directly affects the reliability of your entire network.

Your comms room needs adequate space for your server racks or cabinets, with room to access the front and rear of each cabinet. It needs dedicated, clean power with ideally an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to protect against mains fluctuations and brief outages. Temperature control is essential — a comms room that overheats will cause equipment failures. A small split-system air conditioning unit is usually sufficient for a standard SME comms room.

Security is also critical. The comms room should be locked, with access limited to authorised personnel. It should never be used for general storage — we have seen comms rooms used to store Christmas decorations, cleaning supplies, and even bicycles, all of which create fire risks and restrict access during emergencies.

Cable Management and Labelling

It is astonishing how quickly a well-organised comms room can descend into chaos without proper cable management. Every cable should be neatly routed through cable management panels, bundled where appropriate, and — most importantly — labelled at both ends.

A clear labelling scheme saves enormous amounts of time when diagnosing faults, making changes, or expanding the network. Each cable should be labelled with a unique identifier that corresponds to a documented floor plan showing the exact location of each data point. This documentation is as important as the cabling itself — without it, tracing a faulty cable can take hours instead of minutes.

Wireless Access Point Placement

Your wireless network depends entirely on your cabled infrastructure. Each wireless access point requires a cable back to the network switch, and ideally should be powered via Power over Ethernet (PoE) to avoid the need for separate power sockets in ceiling voids.

Access point placement should be planned using a professional wireless survey that considers the physical layout of the office, wall materials, interference sources, and expected device density. As a rough guide, a single enterprise-grade access point can typically serve 25 to 30 concurrent devices in an open-plan environment, but this varies significantly based on building construction and usage patterns.

Coordinating with Your Fit-Out Team

Network cabling installation needs to be coordinated carefully with the overall office fit-out programme. Cables need to be installed before ceiling tiles go up, before partition walls are completed, and before floor coverings are laid. If the cabling contractor arrives after the plasterers and painters have finished, the cost and disruption increase dramatically.

The ideal sequence is: structural work and mechanical/electrical first, then cabling containment and cable pulling, then partitions and ceilings, then testing and termination, and finally desk installation and device connection. Work with your fit-out project manager to ensure the cabling contractor has access at the right time.

Approximate cost per data point at different installation stages for a typical UK office

Testing and Certification

Once your cabling is installed, every single cable should be tested and certified before the network goes live. Professional cable testing uses a Fluke or equivalent tester to verify that each cable meets the performance standard it was installed to (Cat6, Cat6a, etc.) across all parameters including wire mapping, length, insertion loss, and crosstalk.

Your cabling contractor should provide you with a full set of test results for every cable, along with a certification that the installation meets the relevant standards (typically BS EN 50173 in the UK). This documentation is valuable both for troubleshooting and as evidence of quality if you ever need to make a warranty claim.

Insist on 100% testing — not just a sample. A single untested cable that turns out to be faulty can cause intermittent problems that take hours to diagnose.

Planning Your Internet Connectivity

Your internal cabling is only as useful as the internet connection feeding it. As part of your move planning, research the available broadband and leased line options at your new premises. Availability varies enormously across the UK, and what was available at your old office may not be available at the new one.

For businesses with more than 10 users, we recommend a dedicated leased line rather than standard broadband. Leased lines provide symmetrical speeds (the same upload and download rate), guaranteed bandwidth, and an SLA with financial penalties if the provider fails to meet their commitments. Standard broadband, even full-fibre FTTP, is a shared service with no guarantees.

Order your new internet connection as early as possible. Leased line installations in the UK typically take 60 to 90 working days from order to delivery, and this timeline can extend significantly if Openreach needs to install new infrastructure. Starting this process late is one of the most common causes of IT disruption during office moves.

A Timeline for Your Move

Bringing all of these elements together requires careful timing. Here is a recommended timeline for the IT and cabling elements of your office move.

At 12 weeks before the move, conduct the site survey and finalise the cabling design. Order your internet connectivity. At 10 weeks, appoint your cabling contractor and agree the installation schedule with your fit-out team. At 8 weeks, begin cabling installation (containment and cable pulling). At 6 weeks, complete cabling termination and begin testing. At 4 weeks, install network equipment (switches, wireless access points, firewall) and configure the network. At 2 weeks, conduct final testing, connect a sample of workstations, and verify all services. On moving day, connect all remaining devices and provide on-site support for staff. During the first week after the move, address any snags, optimise wireless coverage, and confirm all systems are working correctly.

This timeline assumes a straightforward move with good coordination between all parties. Complex moves involving multiple floors, phased relocations, or listed buildings may require a longer lead time.