When you grow by acquisition, you inherit everything the acquired company was running. Their vendors. Their contracts. Their equipment. Their billing cycles. Multiply that across a dozen acquisitions and you end up with what we had: approximately 78 US sites on a patchwork of ISP providers with contract end dates scattered across the calendar and no central view of what was where.
The CISO initiated a consolidation to reduce vendor sprawl, improve reliability, and cut costs. I led the implementation. Here's what I learned about the part nobody talks about: the logistics.
The Goal Was Simple. The Execution Wasn't.
The target was clear: consolidate 78 sites down to two ISP providers, one aggregator and Comcast. Fewer vendors means fewer contracts, fewer billing relationships, fewer points of failure, and better leverage on pricing.
On paper, it's a straightforward project. In practice, every site was different. Different current providers. Different contract terms. Different equipment. Different physical access requirements. And as a seasonal company, site availability fluctuated constantly. A location that's fully operational in summer might be partially shuttered in winter, with limited on-site staff to coordinate an ISP install.
Site Surveys at Scale
I managed site surveys across all affected locations, coordinating ISP visits to assess service availability. This is the unglamorous work that makes or breaks a consolidation project. You need to know what each site currently has, what the new ISPs can deliver at that location, and what the physical install requirements look like before you schedule anything.
For a company with 78 sites spread across the US, that's a lot of coordination. ISP technicians, site managers, local teams, and seasonal schedules all have to align. One missed survey means one delayed install means one site still running on the old provider past its contract termination date.
The Equipment Problem Nobody Planned For
During the process, I identified a problem that had been missed in the original planning: unreturned ISP equipment. When you terminate service with an ISP, they expect their equipment back. Routers, modems, ONTs. If you don't return them, they charge you. Each device carried a fee of approximately $2,500.
Across at least 10 sites, legacy equipment from previous ISPs was sitting in closets, on shelves, or forgotten in racks. Nobody had tracked it. Nobody had a return process. If those devices hadn't been identified and returned, the company would have been billed approximately $25,000 in avoidable charges.
I tracked down and returned every unit. It's not the kind of work that shows up in a project plan, but it's the kind of work that saves real money.
Managing Installs and Disconnects in Parallel
A consolidation isn't just connecting the new. It's disconnecting the old. And the timing matters. You can't disconnect the legacy ISP before the new one is live and tested. But you can't keep paying for both indefinitely either. Every site needed a sequenced cutover: new ISP installed, tested, confirmed stable, then legacy service terminated.
I led all new ISP installations, pulling in local resources as needed, and handled every legacy ISP termination and disconnect. Across 78 sites over approximately 6 to 8 months, that's a continuous pipeline of installs, cutovers, and disconnects running simultaneously.
The Results
The consolidation achieved approximately 50% reduction in overall ISP spend. Vendor sprawl was eliminated. The company went from a patchwork of providers with no central visibility to two ISPs with consistent contracts, consistent equipment, and consistent support channels.
The $25,000 in unreturned equipment fees was avoided entirely. And more importantly, the organization now had a manageable ISP landscape that could be maintained, monitored, and negotiated from a position of clarity instead of chaos.
What I'd Tell Someone Starting This
Survey every site before you plan the timeline. You can't schedule installs until you know what's physically possible at each location. Skip this step and your timeline will slip immediately.
Track the equipment. Every ISP termination should include an equipment audit. The fees for unreturned hardware add up fast, and nobody is going to remind you until the invoice shows up.
Account for seasonality. If your company has seasonal operations, your consolidation timeline needs to flex around it. Trying to schedule an ISP install at a site with no staff on-site is a wasted trip.
Sequence the cutovers carefully. New service live and tested before old service is terminated. No exceptions. The cost of running both for an extra week is nothing compared to the cost of a site going dark.
ISP consolidation projects look simple in a slide deck. The reality is logistics, coordination, and attention to the details that don't make it into the project charter. That's where the value is.