Plan internet for a new location before you sign the lease: find out which carriers already serve the building, order the main connection as soon as the space is committed, and arrange a fast temporary connection in case the main one is late. Then work back from opening day for phones, Wi-Fi, payments and screens, so cabling goes in during the fit-out rather than after it. A new site has an opening date that cannot move, and connectivity is the item most likely to miss it.
Adding a location is different from moving one. There is no old service carrying you while the new one is built, the opening may be tied to marketing, staff start dates and a landlord's rent-free period, and the site often has to plug into systems that already run at your other locations. If you are relocating rather than adding a site, our office move checklist covers that case.
Before you sign: qualify the address
The most expensive surprises are found after signature. Before committing to a space, find out:
- Which carriers are already lit in the building, meaning their fiber is inside it. Lit buildings install in weeks; unlit ones may need construction.
- What else is already there: shared fiber or coax that could be live in days.
- Where the telecom room is and how cabling reaches your unit, and who owns that inside wiring.
- Whether the landlord has access agreements with carriers, and how quickly they approve new ones.
- For new construction or shell spaces, whether any carrier has entered the building yet. Brand-new buildings sometimes open before the carriers do.
Ask for this in writing from the landlord and have the exact address, including the unit or suite, checked across carriers. If connectivity is critical, it can be worth making it part of the lease negotiation.
Lead times decide the plan
| Situation at the new address | Typical install window |
|---|---|
| Shared fiber or coax already in the building | Days |
| Dedicated fiber, carrier already lit | 2–4 weeks |
| Dedicated fiber, construction needed | 60–90 days, sometimes longer |
| Porting existing numbers to a new phone service | 2–4 weeks |
These are typical windows, not promises. Landlord approvals, permits and building work push them out. Our guide to fiber installation timelines explains what slows each one down.
Always have a bridge
For an opening date that cannot move, plan as if the main circuit will be late. Options for a temporary or first connection:
- Coax or shared fiber where the building already has it. Often live within days, and it can stay on afterwards as the backup.
- Fixed wireless, where there is roof access and line of sight.
- 5G or LTE on a business router, useful for opening week and as a failover later.
The bridge connection is rarely wasted. Once the main circuit arrives, keeping it as a backup on a different path protects the site from the next outage.
What has to work on opening day
Payments and point of sale
For a store or restaurant, card payments come first. Put payment systems on their own network segment, separate from guest Wi-Fi, and give them a failover path so a dropped line does not stop sales. Test them with real transactions before the doors open, not on the first morning.
Phones
Decide early whether the new site gets new local numbers, moves existing numbers, or both. With a cloud phone system, a new location is mostly a new set of users and a new address; with porting, allow 2 to 4 weeks. Register the correct address for emergency calls before opening. See hosted phones.
Wi-Fi and cabling
Cable is cheapest to run while ceilings are open and walls are unfinished. Get the cabling plan to the fit-out contractor early: data points for desks, terminals, printers and cameras, and ceiling runs for Wi-Fi access points. Retrofitting after the ceiling closes costs more and delays opening.
Screens and TV
If you will show TV to customers, in a waiting room, bar or gym, you generally need a commercial TV account rather than a residential one. Order it alongside the internet so the install visits can be coordinated. See business TV.
Power and the comms cupboard
Plan a ventilated space for the carrier's equipment, the firewall and switches, with a dedicated power outlet and a small UPS so a brief power cut does not reboot everything mid-sale.
Cameras and security systems
Cameras, alarms and door entry systems often need to reach a monitoring service or be viewed from head office. That can need a static IP address, specific firewall rules or a connection that does not share addresses with other customers. Tell the installer of each system which connection the site will have, and confirm that the bridge connection can support them too, since some mobile connections cannot accept inbound connections.
Budget items new sites forget
Opening budgets usually include the monthly internet price and little else. The items that turn up later:
- Construction or installation charges if the building needs work to bring fiber in.
- Inside wiring from the building's telecom room to your unit, which the carrier may not cover.
- The bridge connection, including any equipment, for the weeks before the main line arrives.
- Firewall, switches, access points and a UPS for the new site.
- Cabling during fit-out, and the cost of changing it if the layout changes late.
- Overlap: paying for the bridge and the main circuit at the same time for a period.
- Staff time on opening week, or someone on call who knows the setup.
None of these are large surprises if they are on the list from the start. Several are, when they appear in the last fortnight before opening.
Connecting it to your other sites
A new location usually needs to reach systems that already exist: an accounting platform, a shared file store, a phone system, a booking system, cameras monitored from head office. Decide whether the site simply uses the internet to reach cloud services, or needs a private or encrypted connection to your other locations. Many multi-site businesses use SD-WAN so every site is managed the same way, with failover built in. By the third or fourth location, standardising equipment, contract dates and support becomes as important as the circuits themselves; see multi-site business internet.
A planning timeline
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Before signing | Qualify the address across carriers; get landlord details in writing |
| As soon as the space is committed | Order the main connection; arrange the bridge; choose the phone plan |
| During fit-out | Cabling, access point positions, comms cupboard, power |
| 3–4 weeks before opening | Start any number ports; order TV; confirm install dates |
| 1–2 weeks before opening | Bridge or main line live; payments, phones and Wi-Fi tested with real transactions and calls |
| Opening week | Someone on site who knows who to call; failover tested once |
A worked example
A hypothetical illustration. The business, dates and quotes are invented.
A bakery-café with one successful location signs for a second unit in a retail strip, opening in 10 weeks. Qualification shows one carrier has fiber in the street but not in the building, quoting a lateral with a 75-day build, and coax is already in the strip with a one-week install. Seventy-five days is longer than ten weeks, before allowing for any delay.
The plan: order coax now as the opening-day connection, with a 5G router as a failover for the payment terminals. Order the fiber in parallel. Run cabling for two terminals, a kitchen printer, the menu screens and two ceiling access points during the fit-out. Give the new site its own local number on the existing cloud phone system rather than porting anything. The café opens on time on coax. When the fiber arrives, it becomes the primary and coax becomes the backup on a different path. The site never depended on construction finishing early.
Questions to ask the landlord and your provider
- Which carriers are lit in this building today, and is that in writing?
- Where does the carrier's responsibility end, and who maintains the wiring between that point and my unit?
- Is construction needed, and what is the realistic date if permits or landlord approval are slow?
- What temporary connection can be live in days, and can it stay on as a backup?
- Can the term start at install rather than order, so I am not paying before opening?
- Can internet, phones, Wi-Fi and TV be installed in one coordinated visit?
If this is your first location
Everything above applies, with one addition: there are no existing systems to plug into, so this is the moment to set things up the way you would want them at five sites. Put the accounts in the company's name, keep the admin logins somewhere the business controls, choose a phone system that can add a second location easily, and write down what was installed and who supports it. It takes an afternoon now and saves weeks when you open the next one.
Qualify the new address first
Send us the address before you sign and we will check it across several Tier 1 carriers, tell you what can be live by your opening date, and bring back the best offer. The carrier pays us, so there is no markup, and quotes are free with no obligation, usually the same day. If you want internet, phones, TV and Wi-Fi on one bill with one renewal date, see SMB bundles. We cover New York, Miami, Chicago, Austin and Los Angeles, plus addresses nationwide; see service areas. Start here, call 478-758-8091 or text (347) 870-0965.
