An office move or buildout comes with plenty of decisions: furniture, layout, paint, signage. Network cabling often gets left until the last minute, and that’s when it becomes expensive.
Once drywall is up and ceilings are closed, running new cable takes more time and costs more. If you plan it early, your network is ready the day you move in.
Use this checklist before your data cabling installation to avoid the most common and costly mistakes.
The best time to plan cabling is during design, before construction starts. Your installer should coordinate with your general contractor and electrician so cable runs happen while walls and ceilings are still open.
Waiting until the end of a project often means fishing cable through finished walls, adding surface-mounted raceway, or rearranging furniture plans.
Walk through your floor plan room by room and list everything that needs a wired connection:
Many offices plan at least two drops per workstation so there’s a spare port for a phone or a future device.
Adding one cable during installation costs far less than adding it later. Consider:
If you expect to hire, plan for the office you’ll have in three to five years, not just the one you have today.
For most new installations, Cat6 is the minimum and Cat6a is worth considering for long-term buildouts and Wi-Fi access points. Fiber may be needed between floors, buildings, or network closets. (See our guide to Cat5e vs. Cat6 vs. Cat6a
Your network closet or server rack is the center of your cabling system. A good location should:
Find out where your internet provider’s service enters the building (the “demarc”). Your cabling plan needs to connect that point to your network closet. This is easy to overlook in multi-tenant buildings, where the demarc may be in a shared utility room.
Commercial buildings may have specific requirements for cabling:
An experienced installer will account for local codes and building rules.
Moving into a space with years of leftover wiring? Old, unused cable clutters ceilings, makes new work harder, and adds fire load. The National Electrical Code calls for removing accessible abandoned cable, so plan for cleanup as part of your project.
Every cable should be labeled at both ends, and you should receive documentation showing where each run goes. Without it, future troubleshooting turns into guesswork, and simple changes take far longer than they should.
Cabling, phones, security cameras, and Wi-Fi are often handled by different vendors, which can lead to gaps and finger-pointing. Working with one provider for all of them makes planning simpler and helps everything work together from day one.
CompuType IT Solutions provides data cabling installation for businesses in Belleville, O’Fallon, Edwardsville, Collinsville, and across the Metro East. We can help you plan your drops, design your network closet, and coordinate your business phone system and security cameras as part of one project.
Learn more about our low voltage cabling services, or call (618) 233-8500 to schedule a site evaluation.