Why a Comms Room Refresh Is One of the Best Investments a Multi-Site Organisation Can Make – Completed July 2026
For organisations operating across multiple locations, the communications room is often the unseen backbone of the business. When everything is working, few people think about it. When it is not, the impact can be felt across every office, every user, and every critical business system.
In July 2026, a major communications room refresh was completed for a multi-site organisation supporting approximately 200 users across multiple locations. The project included the installation of a new network cabinet, new firewalls, upgraded switching infrastructure, and a full replacement of patch cabling.
The result was far more than a cosmetic improvement. It delivered a stronger foundation for business continuity, security, performance and future growth.
The project was delivered using the UniFi by Ubiquiti networking platform, providing a fully integrated approach to firewalls, switching and network management. For an organisation operating multiple locations and supporting around 200 users, standardising on a single technology platform simplifies management, improves visibility and provides a solid foundation for future growth. Ubiquiti’s enterprise networking solutions can be explored on the official Ubiquiti website.
The Hidden Risks of Ageing Infrastructure
Over time, communications rooms can become crowded, difficult to manage and increasingly vulnerable to failure. Years of technology changes, business growth and quick fixes often lead to cabinets filled with mixed hardware, poorly labelled connections and patch cables that have been installed and reinstalled countless times.
For an organisation with 200 users spread across multiple sites, these issues create risks that extend far beyond the server room itself:
- Increased likelihood of network outages
- Longer fault-finding and resolution times
- Reduced visibility of network connectivity
- Security vulnerabilities caused by ageing equipment
- Difficulty scaling as new sites, users and systems are added
A communications room should be viewed as critical business infrastructure, not simply a place where networking equipment happens to live.
New Firewalls Mean Better Security and Greater Resilience
The existing network perimeter was replaced with modern UniFi firewalls, providing significantly improved performance, visibility and security across all locations. Modern firewalls are no longer simply devices that block internet traffic; they are intelligent security platforms that actively monitor and protect businesses from evolving cyber threats. If you are unfamiliar with the role a firewall plays in protecting a business network, ESP Projects has written a detailed guide explaining what a firewall is and why firewall protection is important.
Replacing ageing firewalls provides:
- Enhanced protection against cyber threats
- Improved visibility of network traffic
- Better remote access security
- Faster performance for cloud applications
- Greater reliability for business-critical services
For organisations operating across several locations, modern firewalls also provide greater control and consistency, enabling central management of security policies and reducing risk across the entire estate.
By deploying a firewall platform that integrates directly with the wider UniFi ecosystem, administrators gain centralised visibility of all sites through a single management interface, making ongoing maintenance and support significantly simpler.
New Switchgear Delivers Faster, More Reliable Connectivity
Network switches are responsible for moving data throughout the business. As organisations become increasingly dependent on cloud services, VoIP telephony, Microsoft 365 and remotely hosted applications, switch performance becomes critical.
Modern switchgear provides:
- Increased bandwidth capacity
- Better support for VoIP and video conferencing
- Improved Power over Ethernet (PoE) capabilities
- Greater resilience and redundancy
- Simplified management and monitoring
For businesses supporting hundreds of users, these upgrades help eliminate bottlenecks and ensure consistent performance regardless of location.
Why Patch Cables Matter More Than You Might Think
Patch cables are often one of the smallest components in a network, yet they can cause some of the biggest headaches.
Old, damaged or poorly organised cabling can lead to:
- Intermittent connection problems
- Reduced network performance
- Difficult fault diagnosis
- Increased downtime during maintenance
Replacing patch cables while introducing a structured cabling approach creates a cleaner, more supportable environment and significantly reduces the chances of connectivity issues developing in the future.
A New Cabinet Creates Order and Simplicity
While a new cabinet immediately improves the appearance of a communications room, the benefits go much deeper.
A professionally designed cabinet installation provides:
- Better airflow and cooling
- Easier equipment access
- Improved cable management
- Faster maintenance and troubleshooting
- Additional capacity for future expansion
Most importantly, it enables engineers to identify and resolve issues quickly, reducing the impact of any future incidents.
The Real Business Benefit: Reduced Risk
For multi-site organisations, infrastructure projects are not simply about installing new hardware. They are about reducing operational risk.
When a communications room is modernised correctly, businesses benefit from:
- Reduced downtime
- Greater cyber security
- Improved user experience
- Easier support and maintenance
- Better scalability for future growth
The technology team gains confidence that the environment can support future business requirements, while end users simply benefit from a network that performs reliably every day.
Customer Feedback
Following completion of the project, the feedback from the customer’s technology leadership team was overwhelmingly positive:
“The team worked extremely hard and there was a lot to sort out, but they got it done. By 6:30pm everything was back online and all seemed good from the tests carried out remotely, as well as checks completed throughout the following day. Everything looks spot on and really good. I could not be more pleased with how it has gone. I cannot praise the guys enough. There was a lot to do, they kept going and got it sorted. I am hugely appreciative of that.”
This feedback was provided in an email received on 28 July 2026 regarding the completed communications room works.
Before and After
The visual transformation is immediately obvious, but the true success of a communications room refresh is measured by what cannot be seen: improved resilience, better performance, stronger security and a platform capable of supporting the organisation for years to come.
For businesses operating across multiple sites, investing in the core infrastructure that connects everything together is one of the most valuable technology decisions they can make.
Summary
ESP provides itself on giving best in class advice and consultancy to businesses of all sizes. Part of this advice is the proper management of centralized infrastructure. Many IT Support companies simply avoid the problem and leave the comms room in the mess that they found it. That’s not how we operate here at ESP. We want to leave a legacy. If you choose to stop using our services, we want your network to be in a better place than when we inherited it, leaving you with a true legacy. We want our customers to feel that they have achieved a good return-on-investment however long they spend with us. With that in mind, if your cabinet looks like the before shots in this blogpost, then reach out to us to discuss it in more detail and find a solution. Alternatively, you can book your own convenient appointment using this link Book a 30 minute chat.
