Fiber Optic Training: Beyond Splicing and Installation

Posted by Alfred Mapuranga on November 1st, 2018

There is a large number of fiber optic training courses available in the industry, mostly for preparing attendees for fiber optic infrastructure roles. The courses are typically for technicians who wish to take up roles in installation, termination, labeling, testing, and troubleshooting of fiber optic infrastructure. Such courses include OTT’s Certified Optical Fibre Installer (COFI), Light Brigade’s FTTx for Installers and Technicians and Fiber Optic Association’s Certified Fiber Optic Technician (CFOT). However, as demand for bandwidth continues to grow more training is required not only for infrastructure technicians but also for network engineers who plan and design next generation networks.

Demand for bandwidth drives the complexity of communication networks and calls for up to date professional development training of network engineers. Most communication engineers get vendor specific training in order to design their networks for the specific vendor transmission equipment. Huawei, Ciena, NSN, for example, have specific training courses for their clients’ engineers. In emerging markets, such as Africa, vendors sometimes handle all the network design themselves with little or no training for their customers’ engineers.

While it is inevitable for engineers to be trained in the transmission equipment they use in their networks, vendor neutral training in the fundamentals of optical networking is a must. An engineer who is well trained in the fundamentals of optical networking is better able to dictate to the vendor what equipment is absolutely necessary. After all the vendor’s objective is to sell as much equipment as possible while the network owner prefers a cost optimized network. Moreover, it takes good vendor neutral training for an engineer to properly specify optical fiber and transmission equipment and to select the best provider.

 Certified Optical Network Associate (CONA) is about the only vendor neutral optical network training course available. Developed by UK based OTT and delivered by trainers around the world, CONA is an intense 5-day training program for network engineers. Applications of focus in CONA include long haul networks, metro networks, data center interconnects and fiber to the antenna.

CONA covers all aspects of optical networking required by network planners, designers, operators and project managers. Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamentals of light
• Introduction to multiplexing/demultiplexing
• Fundamentals of optical fibers
• Fiber optic impairments
• Dispersion and dispersion compensation
• Fiber optic loss and optical amplifiers
• Transmission systems and photonic networks
• Network case studies

Candidates should pass an examination and complete a project based on Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to be OTT certified. All candidates who complete the training will be awarded an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Continuing Education Credits (CEC) certificate.

A complete program brochure can be obtained by navigating to the Certified Optical Network Associate page, navigating to the bottom of the page and clicking on the download link.