Office Relocation Network Planning: 7 Must-Dos Before Moving Day

2026-10-09 | Practical Guide

Office move network checklist: seven stages from survey to cutover and acceptance.

Why Relocation Network Planning Cannot Be Left Until Last

Office relocation involves far more network work than simply moving a few computers across town. The network risks that can surface during a move include: seats without enough network points, Wi-Fi dead spots, phone numbers that cannot be ported on schedule, email and DNS resolution interruptions, VPN tunnels that fail to reconnect, and access control and CCTV systems that do not match the new floor plan. Many of these problems are not discovered on moving day itself; their roots are laid during planning — for example, when a new site's lines were never confirmed with the carrier in writing, when the cabling plan was never aligned with the fit-out design, or when the cutover runbook has no rollback conditions.

This article provides a checklist in sequential order: seven stages, each explaining what to do, whom to confirm with, and what counts as done. It deliberately does not give a fixed week-by-week timetable, because lead times depend on the carrier, the building management office and the fit-out schedule, and every building and every carrier is different. The only sound approach is to start early so there is buffer, and to keep written records of every key confirmation rather than relying on verbal agreements.

Stage Overview

The table below lists the seven stages and the completion definition for each. The order carries dependencies: without a survey, the cabling plan cannot be drawn accurately; without written confirmation of lines, the cutover date cannot be fixed; without a cutover runbook, the cutover should not begin.

Stage 1: Survey and Requirements Inventory

What an on-site survey should cover

A survey is not a quick walk-through. Items to check include: existing conduit and tray capacity, fibre entry into the unit, whether power outlet positions line up with access point positions, how partition wall materials will affect Wi-Fi, the location of the server room or riser, and lift and haulage routes. Partition wall materials deserve particular attention: metal, reinforced concrete and Low-E glass attenuate signals severely, and the number and placement of access points for an open-plan office can differ greatly from a partitioned office. Do not assume the old site's layout transfers to the new site unchanged.

Inventory list

Beyond hardware, inventory the following: existing equipment (routers, switches, access points, phone systems, UPS, racks, printers), contracts (broadband, telephony, maintenance), phone numbers and call flows, domains and email, VPN tunnels, and access control and CCTV. The purpose of the inventory is to give every item a clear destination: keep, replace, or confirm with a supplier or the management office. A move without a list easily misses a system nobody mentions — for example, a printer with a fixed IP address, or a scheduled task still pointing at the old address.

If you need a free on-site survey, book the survey first and decide the following steps from the survey findings.

Stage 2: Broadband and Line Applications

Six things to confirm with the carrier

According to OFCA consumer guidance, before moving you should confirm the following with carriers: whether the new address is within the existing carrier's network coverage — if the new address is outside coverage, its service cannot be used; if you terminate the existing service after moving while the contract is still within its fixed term, termination charges may apply; when switching, ask the original carrier about its advance termination notice requirements, since different carriers have different notice requirements and insufficient notice may lead to extra charges; confirm in writing the date the new carrier will actually start service, because service provision may be delayed by technical problems or coordination problems between the original and new carriers; and the new site may require new cabling, re-cabling or surface wiring, so ask in advance whether it is needed, when the arrangement will be confirmed, and whether cancellation penalties apply if you later reject the arrangement.

Number porting: the form must match the original registration

To keep an existing phone number, you must complete and sign a Notification of Service Disconnection (NSD) form. OFCA warns that the customer name, identity card number and business registration number (where applicable) on the form are important information: if they do not match the original carrier's registration records, the porting request may be rejected. Before moving, confirm the process and expected timing in writing with both the original and the new carrier, and do not assume there is a universal porting duration. Before cutover, the new system can be tested with a temporary number, and the old system removed only after porting is confirmed successful.

Lead times: quote only an individual carrier's published figures, never as industry-wide

This section gives no universal figure for Hong Kong commercial-building fibre lead times, because research found no verifiable universal figure. The only figures that can be cited are those an individual carrier publishes for its own service. As an example, HGC's published Customer Charter states that its commercial broadband provisioning time is 2 working days for HGC blockwiring buildings and 10 working days for non-HGC blockwiring buildings (applicable only to dynamic IP broadband service; site survey requirements add a further 3 working days). The same charter lists situations where target provisioning / repair times do not apply, including customer-requested rescheduling, premises not accessible, coordination with building management or the building's designated contractor, and congested or blocked conduits. These figures apply only to HGC's own service and must never be presented as industry-wide. Leased lines, new fibre entry, or works requiring conduit cutting may take longer; actual lead times must be confirmed in writing with the chosen carrier.

Stage 3: Cabling and Floor-Plan Design

Plan point by point from the seating chart — no fixed per-person formula

Network points should not be planned with a fixed formula such as a set number of points per person. The correct approach is to inventory actual equipment position by position from the seating chart: computers, phones, printers, access points, CCTV and access control each need their own interfaces; add spare points for future moves, with quantities decided by the seating chart and the equipment list. Meeting rooms, printer spots, access point positions, CCTV positions and access control positions should each appear in the point schedule. The cabling design must be aligned with the fit-out design: ceilings, partitions and furniture layouts all affect point positions and access point placement.

Building management, deed of mutual covenant and landlord consent

Network works are not purely an internal company matter. A building's deed of mutual covenant may prohibit owners and occupiers from making structural alterations to the building; tenancy terms commonly also prohibit tenants from making structural additions or alterations; if in doubt, the tenant should notify the landlord in advance and obtain the landlord's consent, preferably written. Before any structural building works, the necessary government approvals must be obtained. Minor works must be notified to the Buildings Department before and / or after commencement under the Minor Works Control System; where alteration involves building structure, the owner must appoint an Authorized Person and a Registered Structural Engineer to assess feasibility and submit building plans to the Buildings Department, and works must be carried out by a registered contractor after the Buildings Department's approval and consent. Cabling itself usually does not involve demolishing structural walls, but pulling cables through ceilings, conduits, common corridors, machine rooms and meter rooms, or drilling through walls, may still require management-office approval. Every building's deed and management-office requirements differ, so always follow the written requirements of that building's management office; do not assume the previous office's approach applies at the new site.

Fire safety and escape routes: do not cover fire services installations

Escape routes must be kept clear and unobstructed at all times; fire services installations or equipment must not be removed or obstructed and must be kept in effective working order at all times. Trunking, racks and cable trays must not block escape routes; do not remove or cover fire services installations without authorisation. Where works involve alterations to fire services installations, they must be handled by qualified persons or contractors under Fire Services Department procedures. Changes to floor layouts affecting escape routes must be handled under the applicable procedures before construction, with details confirmed by the Fire Services Department or an Authorized Person.

Stage 4: Equipment Audit — Reuse or Replace

Assess each router, switch, access point, IPPBX or phone system, UPS, rack and printer. Check the model, maintenance period, vendor support status and fault history. A move is a good moment to decide reuse versus replacement together — a second shutdown for replacement shortly after the move costs more and disrupts more. But do not use any fixed age as a replacement threshold; equipment life depends on model, load, maintenance and vendor support period. For phone system planning, see this site's phone system page.

PoE Budget: add up item by item, do not guess

One of the most commonly missed items in a move is the switch's total PoE budget. PoE devices include access points, IP phones, CCTV cameras, access control and intercoms. The calculation method: add up the powered-device power consumption of every PoE device item by item, and compare it against the switch's total PoE budget and per-port limit. The power a device actually receives is always lower than the power the switch sends; the difference is heat loss along the copper cable, so power checks should use the powered-device figures. Higher-power devices may need PoE++; confirm against each device's specification sheet, do not guess. The table below lists the IEEE 802.3 PoE classes for reference.

PoE++ is a collective term covering Type 3 and Type 4; when purchasing, confirm which Type applies. Do not write absolute statements such as a given device type always needing a given PoE class; the correct approach is to read each device's specification sheet, confirm its PoE requirement, and compare it against the switch's PoE budget.

UPS and Racks: calculation methods only

UPS sizing should total the load of all protected equipment, convert by power factor, and add a margin; the exact margin follows the equipment specifications and the supplier's advice. Battery runtime depends on battery capacity and load and must be confirmed against the vendor's runtime charts. The relocation checklist should include: the list of UPS-protected equipment, total load, the required runtime objective (for example, enough for a safe shutdown, or to last until a generator starts — the objective is set by the customer's business), UPS topology selection according to equipment sensitivity and supplier advice, battery inspection or replacement records, and server-room cooling and ventilation. For rack layout: install patch panels, switches, routers, UPS and cable managers according to the labelling schedule; leave cooling space and maintenance access; do not block escape routes. Power arrangements should be confirmed by a qualified electrician.

Stage 5: Build — Cabling, Testing, Labelling

Finish cabling before ceiling closure

Cabling should be completed before the fit-out ceiling is closed. Adding cables after the ceiling and panels are finished often requires extra dismantling of completed work, with added cost and downtime impact. Access points can be installed in temporary positions first, with a further on-site signal check after furniture arrives, since furniture and partitions affect signals. This is practical advice, not a guarantee of zero dead spots.

Structured Cabling: length and category reference

The commonly cited TIA-568 horizontal cabling rule: installed horizontal twisted-pair cable is at most 90 metres, and the total channel length including patch cords at both ends is 100 metres, of which 10 metres is the budget for the patch cords at both ends. Cat 6 supports 10GBASE-T only up to about 55 metres (limited by alien crosstalk); Cat 6A supports 10GBASE-T over the full 100-metre channel. Where 10G is needed, use a category that supports the full channel length, such as Cat 6A, subject to the supplier or standards documents. The above is a standards reference, not a measured guarantee. Recognised horizontal cabling media include 4-pair 100 ohm twisted-pair cable and optical fibre; application-specific components (such as baluns or repeaters) should not be installed inside walls, but in the telecommunications room or work area.

Labelling and Testing: every link gets a report

Under TIA-606 guidance, every cable should be labelled at both the near and far ends; labels must be durable, legible and resistant to environmental wear, machine-printed rather than handwritten. Identifiers use unique, logical alphanumeric codes tracking the connection endpoints, commonly covering floor, room, rack grid, patch panel position and exact port number. Colour coding is recommended practice, not a mandatory standard requirement. Beyond cable ends, TIA-606 also covers labelling of telecommunications rooms, patch panels, ports, racks, pathways and grounding bars. For field testing, Cat 6 field test requirements include Wire Map, length, Insertion Loss, NEXT, PS NEXT, ACR-F, PS ACR-F, Return Loss, Propagation Delay and Delay Skew; installed twisted-pair horizontal links should be tested against Permanent Link performance specifications. Relocation acceptance should require: a test report for every link, re-test records for links corrected after failure, and a cabling diagram with a labelling schedule. The contract should require link-by-link testing with reports.

Stage 6: Cutover — Runbook, Rollback, DNS

Pre-cutover preparation

Before cutover, complete the following: full and incremental backups of all systems, with backup integrity verified before the cutover window opens; lower DNS TTL 24 to 48 hours in advance to speed up propagation during cutover; continuous data synchronisation between old and new environments; identical monitoring and alerting in both environments; confirmation that all external dependencies (ISP, SaaS providers, cloud providers, telephony providers) know the cutover schedule; user acceptance testing in the new environment; and performance load testing matching peak production conditions. The cutover window should be scheduled in off-peak hours or at the weekend, avoiding quarter-end, financial year-end and public holidays. The specific window is set by the customer's business rhythm; do not assume a particular weekday is always best.

DNS and Email: lower TTL in advance, not on the day

Lowering TTL should happen at least one old-TTL cycle in advance; lowering TTL does not guarantee instant effect, as resolvers still update on their own schedules. For email migration, lower the MX TTL to a short value (for example, minutes-level) 24 to 48 hours in advance, following the DNS provider or administrator's practice; do not lower the TTL of records that will not migrate. Before email migration, inventory all mailboxes, aliases, shared mailboxes, groups and distribution lists; create the same users and aliases on the new platform first; verify domain ownership with a TXT record but do not change the MX yet. Once the new system is ready, draft the new SPF record and note where the DKIM keys will be published, then decide the DMARC policy. Check email authentication records as part of the migration. Some clients ignore TTL; long-lived connections, corporate proxies and mobile apps with hard-coded hosts will keep connecting to the old address — which is why the old environment cannot be switched off at the moment of cutover.

VPN and Internal Network: a move is a good moment to re-check addressing

The relocation checklist should include: new-site LAN segment planning (non-overlapping with other sites), DHCP ranges, DNS servers, firewall rules, VPN tunnel peer addresses, remote access accounts, and an address table for fixed-IP equipment such as printers, NAS, access control and CCTV. Each site should use a unique segment; if segments overlap, re-plan before cutover. Before cutover, list all existing equipment, IP address purposes and forwarding relationships in full; decide what migrates and map it to the new elements; plan firewall and IP address purposes in advance against old and new; change DNS only after all equipment is online — DNS should be changed last. If the firewall or VPN device has multiple WAN ports, both lines can be brought online first, with VPN tunnel migration during a quiet period.

Rollback Plan: agreed in writing before cutover

Cutover Go / No-Go criteria and rollback trigger conditions must be set before the cutover begins, not argued during the cutover; a single person decides, not a committee. During cutover: a single cutover owner holds all real-time decision rights and makes the rollback decision when rollback conditions trigger; the whole cutover team stays on a live video or chat channel for the entire window; run the final data sync; perform the DNS switch or load-balancer update to direct traffic to the new environment; monitor health checks; and flag any task that runs past its estimate immediately. The rollback plan should include: rollback trigger conditions (for example, core services cannot be restored, key acceptance items fail), the rollback decision-maker, rollback steps (point DNS back to the old environment, restore old lines, notify users), and a post-rollback verification list. The old site's network and systems are retained after cutover until acceptance at the new site has fully passed; the retention period, cancellation conditions and owner must be set before cutover. Before cutover, also check whether scheduled tasks and third-party webhooks still point at the old environment, otherwise they will keep calling the old host.

Stage 7: Acceptance and Close-Out

Acceptance Checklist

The following are acceptance check items — checks, not numerical promises:

• Every seat: wired network connectivity, Wi-Fi connectivity, power normal.
• Full-site Wi-Fi roaming test: walk the whole site with a handheld device and check for disconnections or long periods without network. For a fuller Wi-Fi planning method, see this site's enterprise Wi-Fi solutions and office network pages.
• Spot-check internet speed at each seat: sample and record results.
• Phones: extension-to-extension calls, inbound and outbound external calls, caller ID, voicemail (where applicable).
• Printers / scanners: every device can print / scan from the designated computers.
• VPN: remote access and site-to-site tunnels (where present) are connected.
• DNS / email: internal and external domain resolution, sending and receiving email, email authentication records checked.
• Access control / CCTV: door opening / intercom, CCTV picture and recording playback tested. Access control and CCTV must correspond to the new floor plan — do not assume the old layout transfers; where fire services installations or escape routes are involved, do not alter them without authorisation.
• Server room: UPS, racks, labelling, cooling and monitoring checked.
• Documents: cabling diagrams, test reports, port schedules, account handover (under security procedures) and cutover records filed.
• Old site: lines / services cancelled as agreed, with confirmation that no traffic is left behind (for example, webhooks, scheduled tasks or hard-coded addresses still pointing at the old address).

Close-Out: do not forget documents and the old site

After acceptance passes, two things remain: first, file the documents — cabling diagrams, test reports, labelling schedules and cutover records are the basis for future maintenance and the next move; second, cancel old-site lines as agreed and confirm no traffic is left behind. Problems found should be recorded and followed up immediately. The company's actual relocation service scope, individual buildings' management-office requirements, and individual carriers' coverage and lead times are all subject to written confirmation; this article makes no promises on behalf of any party.

Conclusion

The core of office relocation network planning is not a timetable but a sequence and responsibility list: survey first, lines confirmed in writing, cabling plan aligned with fit-out, equipment decided item by item, every link tested, cutover runbook with rollback, acceptance item by item. Writing down the completion definition for each stage is what prevents discoveries on moving day. To start with the first step, book a free on-site survey to understand the new site's actual conditions, then work through the checklist stage by stage.

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