Plenty of network designs are drawn by consultants who'll never touch a cable tray. Ours are drawn by the crew that will run the cabling, mount the cabinet, and certify every link — which keeps the design honest, buildable, and priced in the same document. Paper first, but paper that knows what walls are made of.
Prefer to talk? Call Chris — 0412 853 618
A fitout on the drawing board, an office that grew past its network, or a new site that deserves better than guesswork — send the details and Chris will come back with straight advice and a fixed design price. Prefer to talk? Call 0412 853 618.
Most business networks were never designed — they accreted. A router here, a switch when the ports ran out, an access point wherever the cable reached, until the "network" is a family tree of purchasing decisions nobody can explain. It works, mostly, until growth or a fitout or a Tuesday exposes the absence of a plan.
Network design is the cure, and it's cheaper than the disease: a deliberate architecture covering the cabling, the comms room, the switching and PoE budgets, the WiFi, and the segmentation — sized for today and the honest growth horizon, costed for real, and documented so the network can be operated, extended, and handed over without folklore. Unified Network Solutions designs networks across Brisbane and South East Queensland with one structural advantage: the designer and the builder are the same team, ACMA Open Cabler #42489, so nothing gets drawn that can't be built and nothing gets priced that won't survive contact with the ceiling space. Our network design services start from how the business actually works; the network design services deliverable is a design your next contractor can build from. That's what network design services are for.
The six decisions every office network gets — by design or by accident. Design is just choosing on purpose.
How the network is shaped: core to edge, what connects to what, where the single points of failure are allowed to be — and where they aren't.
Data point counts and locations from the furniture plan, cable categories chosen per run, pathways and containment — the structured cabling layer, drawn before it's pulled.
Cabinet sizing with growth headroom, placement for ventilation and access, power and UPS provisioning — the room designed before the rack is bought.
Port counts, uplink capacity, and PoE wattage calculated from the actual device list — so the network never fails by arithmetic.
AP counts and placements from predictive modelling and survey data — coverage and capacity designed, not sprinkled.
Staff, guest, IoT, and device networks separated by VLAN from day one — the security architecture that costs nothing at design time and a project later.
Every accreted network eventually presents one of these invoices — we know because we're usually the ones presenting them. Network design exists because each is dramatically cheaper to prevent than to pay, and an afternoon of office network design prevents the lot.
Points added ad hoc, three times, by three contractors — costing more in total than one designed installation, and producing a ceiling full of mystery.
The 6RU cabinet that was full in a year, replaced by the 12RU full in two — where a design would have specified the 18RU once, for less than either.
Fast everything, except the one uplink nobody sized — the whole office sharing a single gigabit link because topology happened instead of being chosen.
New cameras plus new phones plus existing APs equals a switch budget exceeded by maths nobody did — and devices browning out in an order no one can predict.
Undocumented growth means every change starts with archaeology, every provider transition is expensive, and the one person who knows is always on leave.
The office fitted out beautifully with the network as an afterthought — then surface conduit, retrofit pricing, and APs where the cable could reach instead of where people sit.
A fitout is the one moment a network can be perfect for the price of ordinary — every cable path open, every AP position reachable, the comms room a drawing instead of a compromise. The catch is timing: the network design has to exist when the electrical layout is being drawn, because that's the brief window when data points, AP positions, and comms room placement get specified for free instead of carved out of finished walls.
So we design network architecture into the construction program from the start: the cabling schedule aligned to the builder's stages (rough-in at framing, final fix after close-up), the comms room coordinated with the electrical contractor, and the fitout cabling priced from the same drawing the trades work to. The design document doubles as the scope of works — which keeps every quote it generates comparable and every variation visible.
Done this way, move-in day has working data at every desk, WiFi with no dead corners, and documentation the IT provider receives before the furniture. The alternative sequence — fit out first, network second — pays retrofit prices for the same outcome, minus the tidiness.
A design is only as trustworthy as its independence. Ours carries no reseller quota and no brand allegiance — here's how that plays out on paper.
The requirement picks the hardware. Device counts, PoE loads, management model, and budget go in; the specification comes out. When UniFi wins (it often does for Brisbane SMBs), it wins on the maths — and when an existing enterprise fleet or a specific feature points elsewhere, the design says so without flinching.
Your IT provider's stack is respected. If your MSP standardises on particular gear, the design accommodates their management reality rather than fighting it — they'll be operating it, after all.
The estimate is honest both ways. The design ships with a costed build whether or not we build it. A design priced to be won by its own author is a brochure; ours is written to survive competitive quotes.
A design is a promise about the future, and we like keeping ours personally. The design's last page is a build estimate, and for most clients the next step is the obvious one: the team that drew it installs it. Same people, same document, no translation loss — the cabling runs where the schedule says, the cabinet matches the layout, and every deviation the building forces gets recorded back into the drawings as built.
The build inherits all our standing disciplines: cabling certified run by run, hardware commissioned rather than dumped, PoE budgets verified against the design's arithmetic, and a handover pack where the design documents have become as-built truth.
And when someone else builds it — your builder's preferred contractor, your IT provider's crew — the design still earns its fee: it's the scope that keeps their quotes comparable, their work checkable, and the finished network identical to the one you approved on paper. Design once, and every path from there is protected — including the paths you haven't chosen yet.
Headcount, devices, growth horizon, and the building itself — floor plans if it's a fitout, a walk-through if it stands. The design starts from facts.
Topology, cabling schedule, comms room, switching, WiFi, segmentation — drawn, specified, and written to be buildable by anyone competent.
The honest build estimate attached, walked through together, adjusted where budget and ambition need introducing to each other.
We build it (design fee typically credits in), or your contractor does — the documentation serves either path, and it's yours regardless.
The shortest distance between a drawing and a working network is having one team responsible for both.
Every drawing is checked against ceiling spaces, riser realities, and AS/CA S009 by the registered cabler (#42489) who'll be in that ceiling — no consultant fiction.
The design library in our heads is every Brisbane office, warehouse, and clinic we've cabled — what worked, what the building fought, what grew well.
Builders get a scope that fits the program; IT providers get architecture they can operate; white-label design for MSPs who need drawings under their own brand.
A network design for a typical Brisbane office or fitout — topology, cabling plan, hardware specification, WiFi layout, and documentation — usually runs $800–$2,500 depending on site size and complexity. Larger and multi-site designs are quoted to scope. When we also build the network, design cost typically credits into the project. Call Chris on 0412 853 618.
Because networks bought piecemeal cost more than networks designed once. Design answers the questions before they become invoices: how many data points and where, what switch capacity and PoE budget, how the WiFi covers the floor, where the cabinet lives, how guests and devices are separated, and what growth looks like. An afternoon of design routinely saves its fee several times over in avoided rework — and produces a network that's documented from birth.
No. We design vendor-neutral: requirements first, hardware second. UniFi suits most Brisbane small-to-medium businesses on capability-per-dollar and we say so openly — but where an existing fleet, a specific feature, or your IT provider's standard points elsewhere, the design follows the requirement. We hold no reseller quotas, and the recommendation reads the same whether or not we supply the gear.
Before the walls close — ideally at the same time as the electrical layout. That's when data point locations, AP positions, and comms room placement cost nothing to specify and almost nothing to install. Design done after plasterboard means retrofit pricing for everything. If your fitout has a builder and a program, the network design belongs in week one.
Yes — common arrangement. We design the physical and network architecture (cabling, comms room, switching, WiFi, segmentation), often with their input on the management stack, and hand over documentation they can operate from. We build the physical layer; they configure and manage. Clean boundaries, no turf wars, and the design survives provider changes because you own it.
The working drawings for your network: a topology diagram, cabling schedule with data point locations, comms room layout, hardware specification with PoE and capacity budgets, WiFi design (predictive heat map for new spaces), segmentation plan, and a costed build estimate. It's written to be buildable — by us or by any competent contractor you choose.
Both, deliberately. The design covers today's requirement plus the growth horizon you tell us about — spare cabinet capacity, conduit paths for future runs, switch headroom, and WiFi that scales by adding APs rather than replacing them. Growth headroom at design time costs almost nothing; the same headroom retrofitted costs multiples. We size honestly rather than gold-plating.
We service Brisbane CBD, North Brisbane, South Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay, Redlands, and the wider South East Queensland region. For larger projects, we can service regional Queensland by arrangement.
Office network design, fitout network planning, and commercial architecture across Brisbane CBD and metro, Logan, Ipswich, Redlands, Moreton Bay, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast — new tenancies on the drawing board, growing businesses outgrowing their accidents, warehouses planning automation, and multi-site groups standardising on one deliberate network design across every location. Fixed-price design engagements, honest build estimates, and drawings that belong to you — produced by the registered cablers who will gladly stake their own install on them. Network design services for offices, warehouses and multi-site businesses — network design services that hand you a documented plan, not a sales pitch.
Send the floor plan, the headcount, and the ambition — we'll design the network deliberately, cost it honestly, and build it identically. Or just start with the conversation — the first call costs nothing and usually saves the most. Good network design services pay for themselves in the build quote — ask anyone who skipped them.
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Unified Network Solutions