The Low-Voltage Crew Just Left. Now What?

You signed the contract, the cabling crew showed up, and a few days later your new office has clean conduit runs, labeled jacks in every room, and a tidy patch panel in the closet. The invoice is paid. Everyone shakes hands.

Then someone asks: "Okay... so when does the Wi-Fi work?"

This is the gap nobody warns you about. Low-voltage and cabling contractors are excellent at what they do — running cable, terminating jacks, building a clean physical layer. But "the cable is installed" and "the network works" are two completely different milestones, and a lot of small businesses don't find out there's a gap between them until they're sitting in their new office with no internet.

What Actually Has to Happen After the Cable Is Run

Here's the honest list of what's still missing once the physical wiring is done:

• Switches need to be configured, not just plugged in. Out of the box, a switch doesn't know which ports belong to which VLAN, which ports should be trunked, or how traffic should prioritize voice versus data. Someone has to design that.
• Your firewall needs rules, not defaults. A firewall straight out of the box is locked down in ways that break things or wide open in ways that invite problems. Someone needs to configure routing, set up your WAN connection, and build rules specific to how your business actually operates.
• Wireless needs a real design, not a single access point in the corner. Coverage dead zones, channel interference, and guest network separation are all things that get decided — or ignored — at this stage.
• VoIP phones need a network that's ready for them. Voice traffic is sensitive to delay in a way email and file transfers aren't. Without proper QoS configuration, your new phone system can sound choppy on a network that otherwise feels fine.
• Someone needs to document all of it. What's plugged into what, what the IP scheme is, what the Wi-Fi password is, who has admin access — this becomes critical the day something breaks and you need to fix it fast.

Why This Gap Exists

It's not that cabling contractors are doing anything wrong — running cable and configuring a network are genuinely different disciplines, and most low-voltage companies will tell you that themselves. The mismatch happens because business owners assume “IT” is one thing handled by one vendor, when in reality a clean office buildout usually involves two specialists: someone for the physical layer, and someone for the network layer that runs on top of it.

The businesses that get caught off guard are usually the ones moving offices or expanding for the first time. They've never had to think about this handoff before, because their old office "just worked" — often because someone, at some point, quietly did this exact configuration work and nobody remembered.

What to Ask Before the Cabling Crew Leaves

If you're in the middle of a buildout right now, ask your low-voltage contractor these questions directly:

• "Does your scope include configuring the switches and firewall, or just running and terminating the cable?"
• "Will the wireless access points be installed and configured, or just mounted?"
• "Who do I call if the network itself isn't working once everyone moves in?"

Most contractors will answer honestly — and many will tell you flat out that you need someone else for that piece. That's not a failure on their part. It's just outside their scope.

The Real Fix

If you're planning an office move, expansion, or buildout, bring in a network specialist at the same time you bring in your cabling contractor — not after. The two scopes of work need to be coordinated, not sequential surprises. A good network partner will talk to your cabling contractor directly, confirm port counts and locations, and have your switches, firewall, and wireless ready to go live the moment the physical work is done.

That's the difference between moving into a new office and immediately working — versus moving in and spending your first week on hold with three different vendors trying to figure out why nothing connects.

If you're planning a practice move or buildout and want a second set of eyes on the network side before the cabling crew shows up, our Network Project Services team offers a free network readiness review for medical practices — a quick way to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. For a detailed look at what the full network refresh will cost once the cabling is done, see: What Does a Small Business Network Refresh Actually Cost in 2026?