Plan your office IT relocation at least 90 days out. The internet circuit is what determines your timeline fiber installation at a new Los Angeles address takes 45 to 90 days, and no amount of paying extra speeds it up meaningfully. Everything else in a move can be compressed. That can’t.
Most failed office moves in LA fail for the same reason: someone signed a lease in March for a May 1 move-in and called the internet provider in April.
Then the company operates on cell hotspots for six weeks.
Here’s how to avoid that, plus the building-specific obstacles that make Los Angeles moves harder than they look on paper.
Start Here: The Internet Circuit
The day your lease is signed, order the circuit. Before you pick furniture. Before you plan desk layouts.
Typical Los Angeles lead times:
| Service type | Realistic timeline |
|---|---|
| Existing fiber in building, provider already present | 2–4 weeks |
| Fiber in building, new provider | 4–8 weeks |
| No fiber, construction required | 60–120 days |
| Coax / cable business internet | 1–3 weeks |
That “construction required” row is the one that ends careers. If the building has no existing fiber, the provider has to trench, pull, and often coordinate with the city for permits. In Downtown LA and older parts of Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire, that’s a real possibility.
Ask the landlord one question before you sign: “Which carriers are already lit in this building, and can I see the demarc?” If they can’t answer, treat the building as unserved and plan accordingly.
Always order a backup circuit. A cable line alongside your fiber costs a couple hundred a month and keeps you running when the primary fails. In a city where construction crews cut fiber regularly, this pays for itself.
The Los Angeles building gauntlet
This is what makes LA moves different from moves in most other metros.
Certificates of insurance
Nearly every Class A building in Downtown LA, Century City, and Westwood requires a COI from every vendor before they’re allowed on site — naming the building owner and property manager as additional insured, with specific coverage minimums.
Getting a COI issued and approved takes days, sometimes weeks. Your cabling contractor, your movers, and your IT team each need one. Start this early or your crew gets turned away at the loading dock.
Freight elevator reservations
You don’t just show up. Freight elevators in LA high-rises are booked, often weeks in advance, frequently restricted to specific hours, and sometimes charged by the hour. Many buildings only permit moves after 6pm or on weekends. That means after-hours labor rates for everyone involved.
Union requirements
Some Downtown LA buildings require union labor for certain work. Find out before you hire, not after.
Riser access
Getting cable from the building’s main distribution frame to your suite means access to the riser — and in many multi-tenant buildings, that requires the landlord’s designated riser management vendor. You often can’t use your own contractor for that segment.
The 90-day timeline
90 days out
- Order the internet circuit for the new location
- Order a backup circuit
- Request the building’s vendor requirements, COI specs, and freight elevator policy
- Walk the new space with your IT provider
- Confirm the location and condition of the server room or IT closet
60 days out
- Finalize the network and cabling design against the actual floor plan
- Book the cabling contractor
- Submit COIs to building management
- Reserve the freight elevator
- Start phone number porting — this takes 3 to 4 weeks and can’t be rushed
- Decide what equipment moves and what gets replaced
30 days out
- Cabling installation at the new space
- Rack, patch panels, and switch installation
- Confirm the circuit installation date in writing
- Test the new network before anyone moves
- Plan the cutover window and communicate it
Move week
- Final backup of everything, verified
- Decommission and label equipment at the old site
- Physical move
- Reconnect, test, and confirm
- Have IT staff on site the first full business day
After the move
- Keep the old circuit running for two weeks as a fallback
- Update your address everywhere Google Business Profile, invoices, license registrations
- Confirm the old space is properly decommissioned and data-wiped
What goes wrong most often in LA
The circuit isn’t ready. Order early, get the install date in writing, and confirm it weekly.
The server room is a closet with no ventilation. Check this during the walkthrough. Equipment in an unventilated room in an LA summer will fail. You need cooling, adequate power, and ideally a dedicated circuit.
Not enough power. Server racks, UPS units, and network gear need proper circuits. Older Downtown buildings often can’t supply what you assume they can without electrical work.
Phone numbers aren’t ported in time. Porting is a carrier-to-carrier process with fixed timelines. Start it at 60 days.
Nobody labeled anything. Equipment gets unplugged, thrown in a box, and arrives as a puzzle. Photograph every cable connection before disconnecting.
The old space isn’t wiped. Whatever you leave behind — old servers, drives, copiers with hard drives in them — needs proper data destruction, not a trip to the dumpster.
Should you move the equipment or replace it?
An office move is the cheapest moment to replace aging infrastructure, because you’re paying to disconnect and reconnect it anyway.
Replace it if: the server is more than five years old, the switches don’t support what you need, the firewall is out of support, or you’re running anything unsupported.
Move it if: it’s under three years old and still fits your needs.
Consider skipping it entirely. Plenty of LA businesses use a move as the moment to shift file storage and applications to the cloud, and simply don’t buy a replacement server. Less to move, less to power, less to cool.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should I plan an office IT move in Los Angeles? Ninety days minimum. The internet circuit drives everything, and LA lead times run 45 to 90 days for fiber.
How long does the actual move take? Physical disconnection and reconnection is typically one to two days for a 30-person office, usually over a weekend. The preparation is the long part.
Can we move over a weekend and be running Monday? Yes, if the new space is fully cabled, the circuit is live and tested, and equipment is properly labeled before disconnection. Rushing any of those three is where Monday goes wrong.
Who handles the phone system? Your IT or telecom provider. Number porting takes three to four weeks, so start it at 60 days out regardless of who owns the task.
What if the new building has no fiber? Talk to your landlord about existing carriers before signing. If construction is required, budget 60 to 120 days and secure an interim solution.
Moving your LA office?
We handle the IT side of office relocations across Los Angeles — circuit coordination, cabling, network build, equipment moves, and cutover planning.
We’ll walk the new space with you and give you a written plan and a fixed quote.
WinC Services — 1308 E Colorado Blvd Unit #3130, Pasadena, CA 91106 📞 (213) 855-3506
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