30 Aug How Far in Advance Should You Order Internet for a New Office?

How Far in Advance Should You Order Internet for a New Office?

Standard business fiber internet installation takes two to four weeks once an order is signed, but the honest answer to how far in advance you should order internet for a new office is 60 to 90 days before your move-in date. That gap between “how long the install itself takes” and “how far ahead you should actually order” is where most new Tulsa offices get caught off guard. The install date on paper assumes the fiber is already sitting at the curb, the landlord has already approved access, and nothing needs to be built. In practice, a new office almost never starts from that position, which is exactly why the ordering timeline needs padding well beyond the installation window.

For a business planning a move in Tulsa, Jenks, Bixby, or Broken Arrow, the difference between ordering early and ordering “close enough” is the difference between opening day with a working phone system and a first week spent apologizing to customers for a dead line.

Typical Lead Times by Scenario

The right lead time depends heavily on what kind of space you’re moving into. A build that already has fiber run to the suite behaves very differently than raw shell space in a new construction project. The table below breaks out realistic planning windows by scenario, based on general industry patterns for fiber and business broadband deployment.

In short: if the office already has fiber and you’re simply switching providers or adding a line, two to four weeks is often realistic. If you’re waiting on a landlord, a build-out crew, or new construction, plan on 60 to 120 days and treat anything shorter as a stroke of luck rather than a plan.

What Can Push Your Timeline Longer

A handful of specific factors are responsible for most of the delays businesses run into when ordering internet for a new location. Knowing them ahead of time lets you flag them early instead of discovering them the week before move-in.

• No existing fiber at the building. If a provider has to build new construction to reach your suite, that construction work, not the equipment install, is what eats most of the calendar.
• Landlord or property manager approval. Multi-tenant buildings often require sign-off before any contractor can access risers, conduit, or rooftop equipment, and that approval process can stall for weeks if it isn’t started early.
• Permitting on new construction. Ground-up buildings or major renovations may need permits pulled before cabling contractors can even step on site.
• Equipment lead times. Routers, switches, and phone system hardware occasionally face manufacturer backorders, especially for larger multi-line deployments.
• Overlapping trades. Electricians, drywall crews, and cabling installers are often working in the same space during a buildout, and scheduling conflicts between trades can push the internet install later than originally planned.

Why Timing Coordination Matters More Than the Install Itself

Ordering internet for a new office isn’t really a single event, it’s a sequencing problem. The actual installation, once it’s scheduled, is usually the fast part. What determines whether your business is online on day one is whether the site survey, the landlord approval, the cabling install, and the buildout construction schedule were all lined up months in advance rather than treated as separate errands. This is the same concept planners describe as lead time in project management: the real planning window includes everything that has to happen before the visible work even starts, not just the work itself. Some general office relocation guides recommend budgeting two to three months purely for IT and internet setup, separate from the rest of the move, and that estimate lines up closely with what a Tulsa-area buildout typically requires once landlord and permitting steps are factored in.

Why Choose Encore Communications for a New Office Move

Coordinating an internet install around a construction schedule or a lease start date is a scheduling exercise as much as a technical one, and it’s a piece most new offices underestimate. Encore Communications works directly with the business owner or office manager to line up the site survey against the actual buildout calendar rather than treating the internet order as a task that gets handled after everything else is finished. That means confirming with the landlord or property manager early on which risers, conduit paths, and rooftop or MPOE access points are available, since a multi-tenant building in downtown Tulsa or a new build in Broken Arrow can have very different access rules than a standalone office in Bixby or Jenks.

Because Encore is based locally rather than routing every scheduling question through a national call center, the same point of contact who runs the site survey is reachable when a permit gets delayed or a landlord needs a certificate of insurance before granting building access, which is often where national providers lose weeks. The goal on every new office project is straightforward: line up the business fiber internet install date with the actual key-in-hand date, so there’s no week (or month) where a new Tulsa office is paying rent on a space with no working connection. That coordination extends to phone systems and structured cabling as well, since running all three together during a buildout is far more efficient than pulling cable a second time after the walls are already closed up.

How Much Bandwidth Should Factor Into Your Order

Timing isn’t the only variable worth nailing down before you place an order, because ordering too little bandwidth is its own kind of delay: it just shows up after move-in instead of before it. A 2021 GAO report found that millions of small businesses across the country still operate on connections that don’t match modern operational needs, from cloud-based point-of-sale systems to video calls running alongside everyday file transfers. The lesson for a new office is to size the connection for what the business will actually run on it, not just what fits the budget on day one, since upgrading a circuit after the fact often means going through another round of scheduling delays. This is the same reasoning that applies to bandwidth-heavy use cases generally, whether that’s a growing office running multiple video calls at once or an organization streaming events, a topic covered in more detail in our piece on internet speed needs for live broadcasting.

New Construction Adds Its Own Clock

If the new office is part of a ground-up building or a significant renovation in Tulsa, the permit process itself can add real time before any cabling contractor is allowed on site, separate from whatever the internet provider needs to do. That’s part of why the “new construction” row in the table above runs longer than a simple move into existing space. Businesses that treat permitting, construction, and connectivity as three separate timelines instead of one coordinated schedule are the ones most likely to find themselves open for business with no working internet.

Getting the timing right on a new office internet order comes down to one plain rule of thumb: match your lead time to your space, not to the fastest number you’ve heard. If the office already has fiber, two to four weeks can work, but if there’s any construction, permitting, or landlord coordination involved, 60 to 120 days is the realistic window, and starting later than that is how businesses end up opening with no working phones or Wi-Fi. For a growing office in Tulsa, that planning conversation is worth having the moment a lease gets signed, not the week before the movers show up. Contact Encore Communications to get a site survey scheduled and build a connectivity timeline around your actual move-in date.

Ready to lock in a move-in date that actually works? Get in touch with Encore Communications to schedule a site survey for your new Tulsa-area office.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far in advance should I order internet for a new office?

Most businesses should place their order 60 to 90 days before move-in for a typical office space, and 90 to 120 days if the building is new construction or requires new fiber to be built to the site. Ordering earlier gives time for the site survey, any landlord approvals, and the physical installation to happen without rushing.

How long does business internet installation actually take once it’s scheduled?

For a building that already has fiber or broadband service available, the physical installation itself often takes two to four weeks from signed order to live service. That window can stretch well beyond a month if the location needs new construction or extensive internal cabling.

What is a site survey and why does it matter?

A site survey is when a technician visits the location to confirm what infrastructure already exists, where new cabling or equipment needs to be run, and what access points (like a building’s riser or entry point) are available. It determines the real installation plan and timeline rather than a generic estimate.

Does a multi-tenant office building take longer to get internet installed?

Generally yes, because multi-tenant buildings usually require property manager or landlord approval before a provider’s technicians can access shared spaces like risers, conduit, or rooftops. That approval step alone can add several weeks compared to a standalone building.

What happens if internet isn’t ready by move-in day?

If installation is delayed past move-in, a business typically has to rely on mobile hotspots or temporary wireless connections to keep operating, which rarely supports normal phone systems, point-of-sale equipment, or file-sharing at full capacity. This is why planning the order well ahead of the move-in date matters more than the installation speed itself.