When you move into a new office and begin planning if your space is brand new or has been completely stripped the design of your office and network is completely up to you. However, many businesses move into a space that has some to all of the tenant finish work already complete. It may have been used by a company similar to yours such as a prior restaurant or professional office. Or it may have had a completely different use but it still has infrastructure.
The cost of moving into an already completed space can be appealing…financially at least. And without a doubt there is going to be some form of IT infrastructure in the space left behind by prior tenants. So, why not take advantage of that infrastructure and save some cash and time on your move-in? Well, sometimes it makes sense to do that, sometimes it does not.
Generally speaking, if network or voice cabling is already in place, even if the ends of the cables have been cut off, it can offer a significant cost savings to re-use the cable. However, if the cable has been cut at in the ceiling or needs to be moved to a new location the time and subsequent cost to get that cable working can be more than just pulling a new cable.
Another thing to look at is the overall length of cable that is there. The cost of new cable is around 7 to 9 cents a foot right now so a long cable run of a couple hundred feet would cost $15 to $18 to replace but the time to run a new cable that distance my be an hour or two in labor. Conversely, the time to relocate or repair an existing cable might be an hour or two whereas running a new cable might significantly less.
If you are moving walls, changing the location of workstations, or doing other significant changes to the layout of your office a whole new network may be in order. But if things are staying close to where they are, even if the ends of the cables have been cut off you could save a lot of time and money by reusing what the prior tenants left behind.