Most buildings do not need a new network. They need somebody to work out which part is actually slow. CDM assesses what is already installed — cable, switching, access points and the ISP handoff — tests it instead of guessing, and says plainly what is worth keeping. Bremen, Carrollton and across West Georgia.
Three ways this starts
Nearly every upgrade we get called for is one of these three. Two of them usually cost far less than the owner expected. The third one is the one worth acting on quickly.
The video call drops in the same corner every week. Somebody bought a range extender. Then a mesh kit. Then a second router. Every purchase was a guess, and the building now has more equipment and the same problem.
A tenant moves in, a staff doubles, a wing gets renovated, or a family buys a house with somebody else’s wiring already in it. The network was correct for a building that no longer exists.
Some equipment is old and fine. Some equipment is old and no longer receiving firmware or security updates from the people who built it. Those are two different conversations, and only one of them is urgent.
What the work is
A network assessment is not a sales call with a tape measure. It is six steps, and the first four of them happen before anybody talks about buying a single piece of equipment.
Book an assessmentThe first visit is an inventory, not a quote. Every piece of equipment, where it sits, and what is plugged into it — including the unmanaged switch under a desk that nobody mentions. You cannot upgrade a network nobody has drawn.
Existing runs get tested rather than assumed. Outdated wiring is a real problem and it is also the thing people are most often wrong about — a Cat5e run that was installed properly and terminated properly may be perfectly adequate for what the building asks of it. The tester settles that, not the invoice.
Slow WiFi almost always traces to one specific thing: a consumer router doing four jobs at once, an access point mounted inside a closet, an unmanaged switch sitting in the middle of the path, a single uplink carrying everything, or an ISP handoff nobody has looked at since the day it went in. Find that before buying anything.
Three lists, in writing. What stays because it is doing its job. What gets replaced because it is the bottleneck or because support for it has ended. What comes out because it is dead weight. A contractor who tells you to keep most of what you own is worth more than one who does not.
Very little of this has to happen on one day. The work gets sequenced so the item that fixes the most goes first and the rest can wait for a budget cycle — a phased network upgrade instead of a rip-and-replace.
Cutover planned around the building rather than around us. Evenings for an office, a weekday for a church, and the old path left in place until the new one is proven. Downtime is a scheduling decision, not an accident.
Before a quote exists
Three drawings come out of the assessment. None of them are a proposal. They are what is there now, which is the only thing a sensible upgrade can be argued from.
Where existing runs go, where they stop, and which ones test clean. Adding a few drops to good cable is a very different job from re-cabling a building.
What is in the rack or hanging on the wall, what each piece does, and what its manufacturer still supports. This is where keep-or-replace stops being an opinion.
Where the WiFi holds up and where it does not, measured in the building rather than assumed from a box on a shelf. The dead corner usually has a reason.
What you keep
An assessment that only produces a quote is a sales visit. This one produces a document you could hand to another contractor, which is the point.
A map of the existing network — what connects to what, and where the path narrows. Most buildings have never had one made.
What we tested and what it did. A run either passes or it does not, and you see which ones did.
One sentence saying what is actually holding the building back, and what it would take to fix that one thing.
What to do first, what can wait, and what to leave alone entirely — in an order you can put against a budget.
Assessing what is installed, testing existing cable, finding the bottleneck, and replacing the parts that earn replacing — cabling, switching, gateways, access points, cameras and the documentation none of it came with.
Line-voltage electrical, and the drywall and paint after a retrofit. We are also not your internet provider — if the circuit itself is the problem, we can show you that it is and tell you what to ask them for, but the fix belongs to them.
Common questions
These are the five that come up on nearly every call. The answers do not change depending on who is asking, and none of them require you to buy something.
Usually not. Existing cable is one of the few parts of an aging network that is frequently fine, and replacing it is one of the most expensive things you can do. We test what is there first. If a run passes and it lands where it needs to land, it stays. Cable gets replaced when it fails a test, when it is damaged, or when there is no run at all to a place that now needs one.
Because the plan is rarely the problem. Slow WiFi usually traces to one specific thing inside the building — a consumer router being asked to route, switch, run WiFi and handle security all at once, an access point mounted inside a closet or an equipment cabinet, an unmanaged switch in the middle of the path, one uplink carrying every device, or an ISP handoff nobody has looked at since the day it was installed. The assessment exists to find which one it is before anything gets bought.
Cat6 is a later cable specification built to tighter tolerances than Cat5e, and it is what we install on new runs. That does not mean the Cat5e in your walls is the reason anything is slow. Properly installed, undamaged Cat5e is frequently adequate for what a building actually asks of it, and the only honest way to know is to test the runs instead of assuming them. Nobody should be opening walls on a guess.
Age by itself is not the test. The question is whether the manufacturer still supports it. Once firmware and security updates stop being published for a device, it is no longer simply old equipment — it is unpatched equipment sitting on your network, and that is worth replacing whether or not it still appears to work. Legacy equipment that is still supported and still doing its job gets left alone.
It depends almost entirely on how much of what you already own survives testing. A building where the cable passes and one piece of equipment is the bottleneck is a very different job from a building that needs new runs pulled. The other drivers are the number of drops, how difficult the building is to work in, whether the work has to happen after hours to avoid downtime, and how much of the plan you choose to do in the first phase. The free assessment comes first, and the quote comes from what it finds.
Where we assess
Nothing on this page can be worked out over the phone. Everything below is inside a comfortable drive of the shop.
No cost, no obligation
We will inventory what is installed, test what is already in the walls, and tell you which one thing is actually slowing the building down. You get the findings whether or not you hire us — including the parts that say leave it alone.
Typical response — same business day
