The problem
Carriers dispatch technicians and subcontractors of subcontractors. Property teams face a stream of unfamiliar people requesting access to critical spaces, referencing work orders the building has never seen, for tenants who may or may not have ordered service.
The risk
Unverified carrier access is both a security gap and an operational one. Social engineering attacks routinely impersonate telecom technicians. Even legitimate technicians, unsupervised, take the fastest path, which may mean running cable through another carrier's space, borrowing power from a shared circuit, or leaving a demarcation point undocumented.
Understanding it
Carrier coordination is the connective tissue between your tenants' connectivity needs and your building's physical infrastructure. Done well, it starts before the technician arrives: when a tenant orders service, the request is validated, scoped, and scheduled; entrance facilities and pathways are confirmed; and the work is verified when complete.
Every carrier request should be traceable to a tenant, a suite, and a service order. GDS validates all three, then coordinates the carrier through your building's documented standards, which protects the carrier as much as the property, because documented handoffs prevent the disputes that stall projects and sour relationships.
Best practices
- Validate every carrier request against a real tenant service order before scheduling.
- Check technician identification against the dispatching carrier and work order.
- Confirm pathway, space, and power assignments before work begins, not during.
- Document demarcation points and handoffs when service is turned up.
- Maintain a current carrier inventory: who serves the building, from where, over what.
How GDS delivers it
- Carrier request intake and tenant/suite validation
- Technician verification and access scheduling
- Installation oversight and standards enforcement
- Demarcation and handoff documentation
- Carrier inventory and entrance facility records
- Escalation management for service disputes and outages
Common questions
Does GDS replace our relationship with carriers?
No, GDS coordinates it. Tenants keep their carrier relationships and contracts. GDS ensures carrier work inside your building is verified, standardized, and documented on behalf of ownership.
Can carrier coordination speed up tenant move-ins?
Significantly. The most common cause of delayed service turn-up is confusion about pathways, entrance facilities, and building access. A coordinated process removes those unknowns before the order hits the carrier's engineering queue.