November 2023

Links To Sections

Newsletter Sections

FOA Certified Techs: 

See FOA Jobs Web Page and FOA on 

The FOA Jobs Web Page has been updated and a new page added on Using your FOA Training/Certification to Find the Right Job in Fiber Optics

 

  

Fiber Optic Safety Poster to download and print

FOA Videos on

• Last Gasp For Multimode Fiber?  
• Who Lost Lucent? The Decline of America's Telecom Industry.
  
• How Many Fibers? Optimal cable Size. 
• Women Installers In Alaska. 
• FOA OJT To Cert Program. 
• Building Rural FTTH - Learning From The History Of Rural Electrification. 
• Warning For Techs Doing Restoration (Fiber Amplification). 
• Timeline Of Fiber Optics - History Of Fiber Optic Technology - See below

The Archives: Past Issues.

Use these links to read past issues or use FOA's  Custom Search to look for specific topics on our website.

New Fiber U Self Study Programs

Time To Renew Your FOA Certifications?

Renew online with a credit card or PayPal

 

   

 

Training - Expense or Investment?

Canadian Contractor Trains Their Novices The FOA Way

VistaCare Communications owners Byron Klefenz and Sean Reyno had a need to hire more people for the jobs they had. The problem is there weren't a lot of skilled workers available. To solve this problem, they hired Jane Bailey, CFOS/I, of FOTC, an experienced FOA certified instructor and master splicer with 24 years of field experience to join them and train new techs.

VistaCare and Jane developed a paid training program that encompasses formal training and OJT. One week is devoted to the FOA CFOT curriculum, then they are sent into the field for orientation and beginning OJT.

"The first training group was exciting to watch and mentor," said Jane Bailey. The first project was a fiber run of 64km with 29 splice points including midspans. They spliced, terminated racks did both OLTS and OTDR testing. They found a splice point at 41.62km that required a redo and an open fiber at 56.7km. After testing from both ends they pinpointed the locations and fixed the problems.

The fellas built and spliced it and made a great show of getting the job completed and creating an aesthetically pleasing network. As their instructor and manager, Jane Bailey was impressed by the awesome job done by her team.

FOTC.ca is an FOA approved school operating under VistaCare Communications in Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Think about that while you look at some of the workmanship seen in these jobs below.

Aerial Cable Plants "Hall of Shame"

The problem (?) with aerial cable plants is the workmanship is out  in the open where everyone can see it, which makes one wonder what installers are thinking when they create such terrible messes overhead. Here are some recent photos from just this month.

This example of lashing aerial cable (or not) was spotted in Kirkwood, MA by FOA instructor Milt Murry)

These two below are from Hollywood, CA (JH photos) Don't you like the use of the fence to hold service loops?

And sometimes what you see below the cable son the ground is awful also. ( from Bill Graham, FOA founder, retired, in the Toronto area)

Disaster Planning And Recovery

FOA has been documenting the issues with communications networks caused by natural disasters, something that has been in the news a lot recently. The graph below from Next Century Cities shows why.

This graph comes from a new publication from Next Century Cities (NCC) called Wildfires, Natural Disasters, and Network Resilience that discusses disaster preparedness.

"States and localities are not the only ones that should take proactive planning measures to ensure new and existing telecommunications and broadband networks are resilient. Providers and other network operators should upgrade equipment or ensure that proper backups are in place to mitigate future outages before a disaster strikes a community."

NCC has 3 major suggestions:

1. Providers Should Replace Aging or Outdated Network Infrastructure.
2. Collaborating with State and Local Governments Helps Providers Address Regional Nuances.
3. Federal lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission should promote information sharing and develop benchmarks for resilience planning.

But the notion that private service providers cooperate with government is naive. That relationship has been contentious forever; private companies spend millions on lobbying to prevent government regulation like regulating the Internet as a common carrier, network neutrality or providing proper coverage in underserved areas (hence the $43.5 billion BEAD program.)

Furthermore, planning has to start considering the effects of a changing climate. We are seeing disasters that are being called "once in a century" events every year or two. Not only is California suffering from unprecedented numbers of wildfires (Canada and Europe also) but California has been the scene of disastrous flooding last year and more predicted for the coming year. Remember when all anyone worried about in California was earthquakes?

The nature of the disasters can also be different. NY Transit Authority, a FOA approved training organization, said that Hurricane Sandy flooded facilities with salt water which has corrosive properties that were never considered and some of the infrastructure is unsalvagable. Coastal cities need to worry about that as more storms coupled with rising seas flood these cities with salt water.

Consider this headline and photo below from the Washington Post: Otis dissipates after cutting communication to Acapulco as Category 5 hurricane

Disaster Management Symposium

How Many Telecom Techs Do We Really Need?

In the newsletter this month from BBC (Broadband Communities) a industry spokesperson was quoted as saying. " the country will need 205,000 fiber-optic technicians to meet the demand created by the BEAD program."

205,000? That's a lot! How did they come up with that number.

The fiber optic market in the US has been wildly excited about the BEAD program, $43.5 billion for broadband in unserved and underserved areas. As we have analyzed before (FOA Newsletter July 2023), this funding will be spent connecting something more than 10 million users over at least 5 years. That's a about $4 billion per year.

In last month's FOA Newsletter we analyzed the current FTTH market. If the FBA's numbers are correct, the 8 million new FTTH connections last year created a market of about $8 billion in a year. That's about what the BEAD program will cost per year once it gets going, but it will represent only about 1/4 as many connections due to its focus on under- and unserved areas like rural, small towns and unserved cities.

Now $8 billion is a lot of money, but how much of the fiber optic market does it represent? Other than a few very large public projects like the California Middle Mile project that will cost more than $3 billion over a few years, it's impossible to tally up the value of all the thousands of projects in the US, not to mention the rest of the world.

There are other ways to estimate markets. For example, in the last month we've received several emails from market research companies offering reports on the worldwide fiber optic cable market.  These reports quoting estimates that fiber optic cable is a $5-12 billion/year market worldwide raise the question of where those numbers come from and how reliable they are.

To put this in perspective, the annual expenditures deploying wireless  worldwide is estimated to be $85 billion to $95 billion. If you like overviews of that market the Deloitte 2023 Telecom Industry Outlook is very interesting reading. And capital expenditures (CAPEX) for major US service providers is around $60 billion per year (Fierce Telecom) which includes

So the ~$8 billion in BEAD money per year is a lot of money but represents a small part of the overall fiber optic marketplace.

Latest FOA Book: Fiber Broadband Is A Hit With Broadband Planners

FOA Newsletter Sections

News

Lots more news in Worth Reading below

Calix Creates Online Training For Service Providers

FOA has always been focused on the cable plant and its design, installation and operation, but the equipment that communicates over that cable plant is also very important. Calix is one of the major providers of broadband communications equipment and they understand the importance of training also. They have created the online "Calix Broadband Academy" to educate broadband service providers about the five stages of building a successful broadband business. The five stages include the three FOA focuses on, design, installation and operation, but adds two critical areas faced by a broadband ISP running a business, funding the operation and marketing to the customers.

FOA Curriculum For Schools Adds Fiber Optic Network Design in Spanish

FOA is an international organization so we have expanded our website, textbooks and training curriculum to other languages, with Spanish being the most popular. We have recently translated the curriculum for CFOS/D Fiber Optic Network Design into Spanish for our schools in Spain and the Latin and South American countries. We also have schools teaching in Spanish in the US as you can read below.

The FOA Design textbook is available in Spanish also.

The FOA CFOS/D curriculum in Spanish includes the necessary materials for an instructor to present the course in Spanish and give the cfoS/D certification exam in Spanish. The material is available to any FOA-approved school. For more infirmation on becoming a FOA approved school, go here.

Quote Of The Month:

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference today, AT&T’s CEO John Stankey said, “There’s a fallacy to say there’s fixed networks and wireless networks. There are only fiber networks with different access technologies on the end of them. That’s where this is all going.”

Fierce Wireless  

Are Communications Satellites Harming The Atmosphere And  Ozone Layer?

Space-X Falcon 9 Rocket Launch (Space-X from Futurity)

We'ver had several articles in the FOA Newsletter before about the massive numbers of low earth orbit (LEO) satelites being launched to create a worldwide network for communications. We've also covered how tens of thousands of these satellites are disrupting ground based astronomy, but now research being done by NASA and Purdue University is questioning the environmental impact of so many rocket launches and thousands of satellites burning up in the atmosphere on reentry.


 
NASA RB-57 used in the high altitude research program (NASA)

Rockets leave behind them a trail of pollution including metals that may change the atmosphere in ways scientists don’t yet understand. Scientists have long suspected that spacecraft and satellites were changing the upper atmosphere, but studying the stratosphere, where even the highest flights enter only briefly, is challenging.

Using tools hitched to the nose cone of their research aircraft and sampling more than 11 miles (17.7 km) above the planet’s surface, researchers have discovered significant amounts of metals in aerosols in the atmosphere, likely from increasingly frequent launches and returns of spacecraft and satellites. That mass of metal is changing atmospheric chemistry in ways that may affect Earth’s atmosphere and ozone layer.

“We are finding this human-made material in what we consider a pristine area of the atmosphere,” says Dan Cziczo, one of a team of scientists who published a study on these results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “And if something is changing in the stratosphere—this stable region of the atmosphere—that deserves a closer look.” Cziczo is professor and head of the department of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue University.

“Just to get things into orbit, you need all this fuel and a huge body to support the payload,” Cziczo says. “There are so many rockets going up and coming back and so many satellites falling back through the atmosphere that it’s starting to show up in the stratosphere as these aerosol particles.”

The stratosphere is also the realm of the ozone layer: that gaseous marvel that acts as a global tent to shield the planet and all life on it from the searing, scorching rays of ultraviolet radiation. Without the ozone layer, life would likely never have arisen on Earth. And without it, life is unlikely to be able to continue.

Scientists estimate that as many as 50,000 more satellites may reach orbit by 2030. The team calculates that means that, in the next few decades, up to half of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles would contain metals from reentry. What effect that could have on the atmosphere, the ozone layer and life on Earth is yet to be understood.

Will environmental concerns affect the deployment of LEO satellites, favoring the geostationary satellites like VIASAT and Hughes?

Read more at Futurity.

Google Fiber's Open Letter to State Broadband Leaders on Planning for BEAD and Future Deployment Efforts

Straight From the FOA Email Inbox (Without Comment)

Cleveland, the "Worst Connected City," To Build Own City-Wide Open Access Fiber Network

UPDATE: FOA CFOT Course For The Spanish-Speaking Community in Raleigh, NC

Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, NC offered a special FOA CFOT course recently for the local Spanish-speaking community. The course was taught by their instructor, Gilberto Guitarte who is from Argentina, using the FOA CFOT course curriculum which is available in Spanish. The highlight of the course (beyond the fact that all students passed with flying colors) was that student Yamilet from Cuba was expecting baby Isabela probably during the course.. Partner Oscar (also a student originally from Cuba) is standing by her side holding hands in the picture.

Yamulet and Oscar are now parents as well as trained fiber techs. Baby Isabella was born while the parents were still in training (as fiber techs!) Training as parents will take decades!



Gilberto tells us he wonders if Yamulet's excellent score on the CFOT test was due to some help from baby Isabella!

It's Finally Illegal To Sell Counterfeit Cables (And Anything Else) Online

Infrastructure Resources Is Now "Excavation Safety Alliance" - Join Now

Infrastructure Resources has changed its name to Excavation Safety Alliance (ESA) to better reflect their role in the industry. ESA believes that a focus on safe excavation education initiatives helps prevent damage to buried facilities. Focusing on safe excavation spotlights the importance of safety for the people doing the digging, and helping keep people safe is the top priority of both damage prevention and safe excavation efforts.

The are now over 1,500 individual members of the Excavation Safety Alliance. The individual memberships are FREE because we want everyone to have a voice and the ability to get the valuable education.  Individual membership is free; corporate membership is $2000.. For more information, go here.

Global Excavation Safety Conference will be held in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, from March 19-21, 2024. This is an opportunity for damage prevention & excavation safety professionals from all over the world to come together and learn, network, and share their knowledge and expertise in this vitally important field.

More info on Global ESC 2024

Technical

Fiber optic technology, standards, equipment, installation, etc.

Cross Reference To FOA Technical Reference Materials

The FOA has almost 1,000 pages of technical information on the FOA Guide, 100+ videos and two dozen online courses at Fiber U, all this can make it difficult to find the right information.

Cross Reference To FOA Tech Materials
To help this, we have created a cross reference guide to the textbooks, Online Guide and Fiber U courses, all the FOA technical information. Besides the textbooks, online Guide and Fiber U, each section of the Guide also includes links to the 100+ FOA videos available.
Cross Reference Guide to Textbooks, Online Guide and Fiber U

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New Products

New Fiber Splicer Kit Prepares Two Fibers At Once

The new AFL Fujikura 45S splicer has a very useful new feature. It includes a new fiber stripper that can strip 2 250 micron buffered fibers at once and an adapter plate that allows cleaving two fibers at once. The two fibers, with one in each hand, can even be placed in the splicer clamps simultaneously. That should prove to be a real time-saver for the splicing tech.

250 > 200 > 180 > 160 Microns - Fiber Buffer Diameter Keeps Shrinking

Klein Improves J-Hook Design

Improve the J-hook? Klein has done just that. The Klein J-Hook is a unique 2-Piece latchable system that fully encloses cables. It has a lockable latch easily opens to add or remove cables. Rounded edges are designed to avoid damage to cable jackets. It has a 2-Point screw hole mounting for permanent, secure mounting (screws included) and a screw key slot for removable mounting.

Recycling Fiber Optic Cables - Contact LD4 Recycle  

  VFL Demonstrates Fiber Scattering And Provides Hypnotic Entertainment

Innovative Connector Cleaning Dust Cap

Insider Info

Drop Cables For Customer Premises FTTH Installation

Learning Important Information From A Found Cable Scrap

Problems With Old Cables And New High Fiber Count Cables?

A FOA CFOT reported that they have been doing fiber characterization testing on cable plants that include both old and new fibers, a common result from building out from a legacy cable plant. One surprising result was that some relatively short links are showing CD and PMD problems even when only short segments of the cable plant are older fibers. PMD has become an issue as speeds increase but earlier fibers we not optimized to prevent PMD. This is just another reason to do fiber characterization before trying to upgrade network speeds. (There is more information on Fiber Characterization in the FOA Guide and a fiber characterization course on Fiber U.

Managing Fiber Optic Projects - The Gantt Chart

(With An Excel File To Make Your Own)

The most common way to track projects is the Gantt Chart, a chart of activities that tracks the progress of projects along a timeline. each activity is represented by a bar and the position and length of the bar represents the starting date and duration of the activity. This allows you to see what activities are needed for the project, when the activities start and end so it can be used to track the progress of the project visually. Here is what a Gantt Chart for a fiber project might look like:

More Help On Color Codes (Including Copper Cabling And Fiber Optics)

The FOA has created a print-your-own pocket guide to fiber optic color codes. It has color codes for fibers and buffer tubes, connectors and premises cables inside and on the back, QR codes to take you directly to the FOA Guide and Fiber U. The FOA Guide page on Fiber Optic Color Codes is one of the most read pages on the FOA website and the Fiber Optic Color Codes minicourse on Fiber U very popular also.

Warning For Techs Doing OSP Restoration

Try The FOA's Online Loss Budget Calculator

Worth Reading

Each month we read hundreds of newsletters and online articles. These are the ones we think you will find "worth reading."

FOA  has a web page with resources on fiber broadband networks and the IIJA/BEAD funding programs.

Cross Reference Guide to FOA Textbooks, Online Guide and Fiber U

FOA Timeline of Fiber Optic History  and the new FOA video "The History Of Fiber Optics"

Worth Reading (And Watching):

September 2023

TIA Fiber Optic Technology Consortium "Standards Explorer"   Covers Ethernet, more coming.

Developing a Fiber Workforce Really Does Take A Village - FOA President Jim Hayes' May/June column in ISE magazine looks at the role of manufacturers' training in developing the fiber workforce.

We need more people learning trades. Something is finally being done about it. If you’re able to work with your hands, you’ll never be out of work. Washington Post Editorial. Statistics show that for every five baby boomers retiring, there’s only one person to take their position.

You can also buy copies - Telegeography




CABL® (cabl.com) serves the business needs of the Broadband industry (including traditional cable TV, fiber, telecom and satellite providers) with employment listings, classified ads, discussion forums, and more. A contractor told us it's where they find lots of opportunities for subcontracting.

Do You Believe In Magic? Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Jim Hayes's column in March/April ISE Magazine.

Fiber optics take the pulse of the planet It’s like radar, but with light. Distributed acoustic sensing — DAS — picks up tremors from volcanoes, quaking ice and deep-sea faults, as well as traffic rumbles and whale calls. Knowable Magazine++++++

Fiber Optics Installed By The Lowest Bidder  - ISE Magazine - by Jim Hayes, FOA President.

Building Broadband During Component and Worker Shortages - Broadband Communities - Completing broadband builds requires competent fiber optic techs, but training them requires understanding how they learn - by Jim Hayes, FOA President.

Worth Reading - Magazines, Websites and Newsletters

CABL® (cabl.com) serves the business needs of the Broadband industry (including traditional cable TV, fiber, telecom and satellite providers) with employment listings, classified ads, discussion forums, and more. A contractor told us it's where they find lots of opportunities for subcontracting.

New Fiber Optic Magazine In Spanish

Todo Fibra Optic magazine has many years experience in the fiber optic industry so he knows the industry well. FOA will be working with him to share our extensive technical materials in Spanish.

Read their newsletter here. It is now available online in English and Spanish.



 

1995-2020 - FOA's 25th Anniversary!

Worth Reading - News Summary & History - More Past Links Worth Repeating

If you are interested in restoration - aren't we all? - you should also read this article in dpPro magazine by FOA President Jim Hayes: Damage Protection Requires Looking Overhead As Well As Underground - dpPRO Magazine - about the problems with aerial cables. His previous article for the magazine was New Techniques for Fiber Optic Installation.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance weekly newsletter has lots of interesting articles and links.

Universal access to broadband is a cornerstone to a strong economy, Achieving universal access will require community partnerships. by Alfreda B. Norman, Sr. VP,  Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

FIBER TO THE FARM: The co-ops that electrified Depression-era farms are now building rural internet. Be sure to check out the high-tech equine installation equipment.

Next Century Cities Newsletter - News from cities around the US including Detroit and New York plus small

Infrastructure Get Some Respect, NY TImes "On Tech"   "The magic of the internet requires a lot of very boring stuff behind the scenes. "

The job market is hot. So why are half of U.S. grads missing out?  

VIAVI Books On Fiber Optic Testing (2 volumes) - They're back!

Q&A

When readers ask us questions, we genrally refer them to FOA resources where they can find the answer to their question and many more. We first send them to the FOA Guide which is the table of contents for the FOA technical resources. There they can find pages indexed by topic and a search engine for the FOA website. It also links them to FOA videos and courses on our free online learning site Fiber U.

The FOA Fiber FAQs Page (FAQs = frequently asked questions) gathers up questions readers have asked us (which first ran in this newsletter) and adds tech topics of general interest.

Good Question!

Tech Questions/Comments From FOA Newsletter Readers 

More Q&A in the FOA FAQs Page  

Degraded Underground Fiber Optic Cable
Q: How can you handle a degraded buried underground fiber link, which has degraded due to multiple joints introduced during maintenance?
A: If it has reached a point where the loss or dispersion limits its use, it probably should be replaced.

• Single fiber or ribbon splicing?
• Type of splice closure
• Type of cable (loose tube, ribbon, flexible ribbon, high density, armored, ADSS, etc.)
• Installation: aerial or underground
• Location: urban or rural
• Set up time (same for low fiber count cable as high fiber count cable)

More Q&A in the FOA FAQs Page  

ANSI/NECA/FOA-301 is available free from FOA.



Download your free copy of

The Types of Work Done By Fiber Techs And How It Affects Training

FOA School News

Need A Fiber Optic Course Onsite? Invite an FOA School To Come To You

Fiber U On-The-Job Training (OJT) Program

Like other FOA programs, the OJT-To-Cert program is free. If you and/or your company is interested in the FOA OJT-To-Cert program, contact FOA.

To explain how OJT works and FOA's OJT-To-Cert program, FOA created a short video: Lecture 62: On The Job Training For Fiber Optics Using Fiber U     

FOA Direct Certification Program For Experienced Fiber Optic Techs

Experience Plus Online Study At Fiber U = FOA Certification

Fiber U "Basic Fiber Optics" Online Self-Study Course Now In Spanish

El curso de autoaprendizaje en línea "Fibra óptica básica" de Fiber U ahora en español

El sitio de aprendizaje en línea de FOA, Fiber U, tiene más de dos docenas de cursos de autoaprendizaje gratuitos sobre fibra óptica y cableado de instalaciones. Como era de esperar, el tema más popular es el curso "Fibra óptica básica", que se utiliza para iniciarse en la fibra óptica y como curso de preparación para realizar el examen de certificación FOA CFOT.

Ahora el curso básico de fibra óptica está disponible en español, utilizando el libro de texto FOA en español, la sección de la Guía en línea en español y la capacidad de YouTube para traducir subtítulos de video al español. El curso funciona exactamente como la versión en inglés con 10 lecciones, cada una con cuestionarios y una opción para tomar un examen de Certificado de finalización.

Para presentar el nuevo curso de español Fiber U, el examen Certificate of Completion es gratuito, así que dígaselo a sus contactos.

Curso Básico de Fibra Óptica de Fibra U en español.

New Fiber U Course: Fiber Characterization 
FOA has added a new course at Fiber U on Fiber Characterization. Fiber characterization is the process for testing long fiber cable plants for its ability for carrying high speed communications. With so many networks now operating at 100, 200, 400 or even 800 Gb/s, fiber characterization is important, especially on older fiber optic cable plants.The free Fiber U Fiber Characterization course is available in two forms, as a standalone Fiber U fiber Characterization Course with its own Fiber U Certificate of Completion and as a separate Lesson in the Fiber U Fiber Optic Testing course. This course is recommended for those studying for the FOA CFOS/FC Fiber Characterization certification.

Fiber U MiniCourses: Got An Hour Or Less? Learn Something New About Fiber Optics.

What Fiber Techs Don't Know -

What We Learn From FOA Certification Tests

FOA offers free online self-study programs at Fiber U. Many users are preparing for FOA certification programs - taking courses at our schools or using the Direct Certification program. Some of our schools are requiring Fiber U programs as prerequisites for their classroom courses so they can spend more time on hands-on activities.

Cross Reference To FOA Tech Materials
FOA has so much technical reference material, we created a cross reference guide to the textbooks, Online Guide and Fiber U courses, all the FOA technical information. Besides the textbooks, online Guide and Fiber U, each section of the Guide also includes links to the 100+ FOA videos available.

Cross Reference Guide to Textbooks, Online Guide and Fiber U

FOA Guide To Fiber Optic Workforce Development

To help those new to fiber optic workforce development, FOA has created a web page we call  "Fiber Optic Workforce Development."  In this page, we share what we have learned about the fiber optic workforce, who they are and how they learn their trade. We discuss what defines a fiber optic tech and how they should be certified.

Read the FOA Guide To Fiber Optic Workforce Development online.

Latest FOA Book: Fiber Broadband (Paperback and Kindle)

More Translations of FOA Textbooks

FOA is a very international organization and it works hard to accommodate the language needs of everyone. We have been translating our books and website into the languages most requested, and this month, we add two more textbook translations. We also want to thank Jerry Morla, FOA CFOS/I instructor and Director who has been doing the recent translations into Spanish, his native language.

Planning A Fiber Optic Project?

More New FOA Video Lectures On YouTube

Did you know YouTube will close caption videos in many languages? Here are directions.

Did you know YouTube will close caption videos in many languages?


Sign in with Google to get translations for closed captioning. Click on the settings icon (red arrow.) Choose "Subtitles".  English is the default language. Click on the arrow after "English (auto-generated) >". In the new window click on "Auto-translate" and choose the language you want. 

FOA Loss Budget Calculator On A Web Page 5/2020

FOA has written many articles about loss budgets, something everyone involved in fiber optics needs to know and needs to know how to calculate. We recently discovered how to get a spreadsheet ported to a Web page, so we created this web page that calculates loss budgets. We have an iOS loss budget app, but with this web page, you can calculate loss budgets from any device, smart phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer that has web browsing capability.

 

Bookmark this page (especially on your smartphone): FOA Loss Budget Calculator Online

We are continually updating the Online Reference Guide to keep up with changes in the industry and adding lots of new pages of technical information. When you go to the FOA Guide Table of Contents to see the latest updates - look for .

Recent updates:

FOA's FTTH Handbook: We've gathered all our information on FTTH from the FOA Guide and past issues of the FOA Newsletter and edited it into a 112 page "FTTH Handbook." We even added a section on planning and managing FTTH Projects.
The Fiber Optic Association Fiber To The Home Handbook is available from Amazon in print and Kindle editions.

Sitio web y manual de FTTH ahora en español

Sitio web y manual de FTTH ahora en español - FTTH Website And Handbook Now In Spanish

     

 
Fiber Optics (4 languages), Premises Cabling, OSP fiber and construction, Network Design, Testing and FTTH

   The FOA has it's own reference books for everyone working in fiber optics - contractors, installers and end users as well as for use as textbooks in classes at educational institutions. They are available as printed books or Kindle at much lower prices than most textbooks since we self-publish and sell online, cutting out the middlemen. Click on the book images for more information. The Reference Guide To Fiber Optics is also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese. The Design book is available in English and Spanish.

Click on any book for more information about it.

  

Fiber Optic Safety Poster to download and print

On Safety

There is a toll-free "call before you dig" number in the USA: Dial 811. See www.call811.com for more information in the US. Here is their map of resources by states.

In Canada, it's "Click Before You Dig.com" They also have a page of resources by US states and Canadian provinces.

The Common Ground Alliance has an excellent "Best Practices Guide" online

The US Department of Transportation has a website called "National Pipeline Mapping System" that allows one to search for buried pipelines.   

Why We Warn You To Be Careful About Fiber Shards


Photo courtesy  Brian Brandstetter,  Mississauga Training Consultantcy

Contact Us:  http://www.foa.org or email <info@foa.org>

Contact Us
The Fiber Optic Association Inc.
       

 FOA Logo Merchandise

New FOA Swag! Shirts, Caps, Stickers, Cups, etc.

Your Name, CFOT® - It pays to advertise!

The FOA encourages CFOTs to use the logo on their business cards, letterhead, truck or van, etc. and provides logo files for that purpose. But we are also asked about how to use the CFOT or CFOS certifications. Easy, you can refer to yourself as "Your Name, CFOT" or "Your Name, CFOS/T" for example.

Feel free to use the logo and designations to promote your achievements and professionalism!

Privacy Policy (for the EU GDPR): The FOA does not use cookies or any other web tricks to gather information on visitors to our website, nor do we allow commercial advertising. Our website hosts may gather traffic statistics for the visitors to our website and our online testing service, ClassMarker, maintains statistics of test results. We do not release or misuse any information on any of our members except we will confirm FOA certifications and Fiber U certificates of completion when requested by appropriate persons such as employers or personnel services.
Read the complete FOA Privacy Policy here.