August 2022

Sections

Note we have changed the format to place articles in sections on one topic and all articles are dated so you know if we repeat one - which we often do when we think it's very important!

Features

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. 
• Things To Learn From A Town That Voted Down Fiber. 
• Can Tapping Fiber Reduce Cost? 
• How Many Fibers? Optimal cable Size. 
• Women Installers In Alaska. 
• FOA OJT To Cert Program. 
• FTTH Month - June FOA Newsletter.
• Building Rural FTTH - Learning From The History Of Rural Electrification. 
• New FOA Guidelines For Training And Certification. 
• 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.

Time To Renew Your FOA Certifications?

You can now renew with PayPal or a credit card

 

   

 

Understanding The Fiber Optic Workforce 

Everywhere you look today, there seems to be an article on workforce development, with two job openings for every person seeking employment in the US. Nowhere will this be more critical than in fiber optics, considering all the funding becoming available for building new fiber broadband networks. Nobody knows more about fiber optic workforce development than FOA - it's what we've been doing for the last quarter century! So we're going to share what we know to help everybody build the fiber optic workforce we need.

Many More IIJA Infrastructure Projects Besides Broadband Will Need Fiber

Most of the attention recently has focused on the ~$43 billion allocated for broadband projects by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in the US. That alone will probably double fiber optic work in the near future, but does not include other projects included in the IIJA >$1 trillion funding package. Look at this graph from the Government Finance Officers Association:

Transportation projects - including roads and bridges, airports, rail, public transit and ports - starting with roads which will involve intelligent traffic systems with fiber to traffic signals, cameras and wireless antennas as an example. Energy will include fiber needed for grid management - smart grid and microgrid systems. Water and wastewater infrastructure requires management systems communicating over fiber.

Natural disaster prevention ($25 billion) is an opportunity for the use of more fiber sensors. Fiber has been used to monitor bridges and and roads, but new development work allows using fiber - even that originally installed just for communications - as sensors for earthquakes and volcanic activity. Adding sensors and cameras to rural aerial fiber optic cables can be used for monitoring for wildfires, storms or floods.

Many of the groups involved in the areas of these projects like electrical workers (IBEW), municipal and traffic workers (IMSA) and utilities (EPRI) are already groups that understand the importance of fiber to their areas of interest and are partners with FOA.

But the scope of all these infrastructure projects is staggering. Broadband probably represents less than half of all the work that will be required on infrastructure projects in the US. The fiber optic workforce is already overextended, so much so that FOA is being asked to publicize projects that lack enough qualified bidders to encourage contractors to just bid on the projects.

Workforce training requires finding people to train and to do that requires understanding what the fiber optic workforce is. That's why we've created the FOA Guide To Fiber Optic Workforce Development.

Sitio web y manual de FTTH ahora en español

FTTH Website And Handbook Now In Spanish

Sitio web y manual de FTTH ahora en español

FOA Is A Family-Oriented Organzation

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

Last month we mentioned the FOA has created a pocket guide to fiber optic color codes that we are sending to new and renewed CFOTs. 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 reaction was overwhelming. That's not surprising, as 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. And, unsurprisingly, we got lots of requests for the cards. While we were sending them free to new and renewing CFOTs, we wanted to make them available to everyone, but we're not prepared to fill all the requests easily. So we came up with two alternate solutions - print your own or download an electronic version to your smartphone.

Here's a do-it-yourself FOA Guide To Fiber Optic Color Codes card. Just download the PDF file, print it on a color printer and fold it up as shown. Then you have your own pocket guide to color codes. Make a bunch for your co-workers too.

Then we realized that many of your also do structured cabling work, so it was a natural to add a Color Code Guide for UTP copper cabling in printable (below) and electronic (above) versions.

Fiber Optic History - The Video

FOA recently created a timeline of fiber optic history to show how the technology and applications of fiber optics has developed in its 50+ year history. That seemed to be a perfect topic for one of the FOA video lectures, so we created Lecture 73 in the FOA series of lectures on fiber optics. This history of fiber optics is narrated by FO President Jim Hayes whose voice you probably recognize from other FOA lectures. Jim is a good choice as narrator because his involvement in fiber optics starts in 1977/78, about the time of the first field trials in the US and UK and includes the founding of the FOA out of the original Fiber U training conferences.

Who Can Use Fiber U? Everyone Does Use Fiber U

Cross Reference To FOA Technical Reference Materials

The FOA has created what is probably the world's largest knowledge base on fiber optics. FOA has printed textbooks, online technical information in the FOA Guide, more than one hundred videos and has free online learning at Fiber U. Generally for a given topic, like basic fiber optics, FOA will have the material printed in book form, online as technical web pages, covered in several videos and will use those to create a Fiber U course. With 11 textbooks in 4 languages, 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

FOA Videos
We have also rearranged the 100+ FOA videos in similar categories on the Contents Page of the Online Guide, making the videos, especially the lectures, much it much easier to find a video on a particular topic. 
FOA Videos Guide.

FOA Newsletter Sections

News

Lots more news in Worth Reading below

FOA Participates At IBEW/NECA/JATC Instructor Training Conference For 26th Year

FOA Director Bill Graham and his wife Shirley represented the FOA at the training partner's trade show July 29/20 at the electrical Training Alliance's 27th annual National Training Institute where FOA has been a training partner since 1996, the second year NTI was held. FOA Director Tom Collins and his wife Donna are training instructors August 1-5 which we will report on next month.

FOA has been an enthusiastic supporter of IBEW, NECA and the local JATCs since NTI began, training several hundred instructors who offer FOA fiber optic training and certification to apprentices at 35 of the local JATCs all over the USA.

Blake Urmos of Low Voltage Nation Gets His FOA CFOT

Microsoft president sees 'new era' of stagnating labor pool

Tribal Broadband Bootcamps Prepares Indigenous Tribes To "Do It Yourself"

The second Tribal Broadband Bootcamp was held in March 2022 in Southern California. Matthew Rantanen, Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association (SCTCA) and long-time proponent of tribal broadband, once again hosted the group on his ranch, offering his “zombie bunker” for a series of hands-on trainings and conversations about the needs and approaches for connectivity in Indian Country.



Network managers, technicians, administrative staff all received hands-on trainings. TBB’s approach is to ensure that networking technology is demystified and tribal communities are empowered to tackle building and running their own networks.

The first bootcamps focused on wireless technologies. Fiber bootcamps are being planned and FOA is providing assistance.

Read the article and see photos from the bootcamps here.

Technical

On fiber optic technology, standards, equipment, installation, etc.

The Value Of Knowing What Your Are Testing And Proper OTDR Setup

FOA consistently makes the point that the most important part of a network design or installation is the documentation. It tell the installers what to build and records their test results. It helps troubleshoot faults if a cable plant problem arises and restoration becomes necessary.

Documentation is also a big help when testing with an OTDR, as two technical inquiries this month showed. One concerned the testing of a cable still on the reel before installation. In this case, just knowing the exact length of the cable or fiber would be helpful.

Here is the first trace sent to FOA:

The sender wanted to know why there was a reflective event in the fiber - had it been broken or spliced? That reflective event is a ghost, easily recognized by the fact that the connection between the launch cable (500 feet long) was high loss and highly reflective (it was a bare fiber adapter) and the second reflection was another 500 feet away. The decay from the connection to the launch cable was due to a bare fiber adapter with ~4 dB loss and a lot of reflectance (-25.7 dB) overloading the OTDR receiver.

There was nothing wrong with the fiber.

The second trace was for a longer fiber, still a cable on a reel before installation:

The question was why was there a "gainer" in the middle of the fiber. The trace sent to FOA showed a noisy trace with a "gainer" at around 5500 feet. Again there seems to be no problem with the fiber, but the OTDR setup caused the noisy trace and that "gainer" was because the noise exceeded the threshold for events set in the OTDR. Redoing the trace with a longer test pulse or longer integration time should reduce to noise. In this case, just knowing the fiber was continuous with no splices tells you a gainer (caused by the joint between two different fibers) was not the cause of the event. And looking at the noise on the fiber says the OTDR is either not properly set up or defective.

If You Use Pass?Fail, Know Your Setup and Have Documentation

100G On One Fiber With One Laser Lowers Cost

In applications like data centers, users always want higher speeds but cost is an issue. As recently as a year or two ago, 100G in the data center required a transceiver with 4 lasers and WDM for singlemode or 4 lasers and 4 fibers in each direction for multimode. Most big data centers have already transitioned to all singlemode so they will not have to update the fiber infrastructure when moving up to 400/800G or terabit speeds.

In long haul telecom, coherent transceivers dominate at high speeds and long lengths, but coherent transceivers are complicated and costly. Prices have been going down for coherent components, but are still higher than 4 channel WDM.

Another solution has arrived and it promises to be much less costly than either of those two options - a transceiver using PAM4 encoding. PAM4 encoding uses 4 signal levels so that each "bit" represents 2 bits of data. The encoding looks like this:



In a binary coded link, each bit is on or off so each bit indicates a "0" or a "1" which is what binary means. In a PAM4 encoded signal, the bit has information in the pulse height, which means the bit can carry two bits of information - "0, 1,2 or 3," twice as much information in the same bit, doubling the information carrying capacity of the link.

A PAM4 transceiver needs only one laser to achieve 100Gb/s data rates, making it less expensive than a transceiver that has 4 lasers and a WDM. The same technology can be leveraged for 400G also.

PAM4 is not a fiber innovation. It has been used for years in electrical communication circuits to increase bandwidth. But the implementation requires some signal processing in the receiver which took some time to implement in fiber optic transceivers.

Read more (for real techies!) from the 100GLambda MSA group. 

Examples of SFP transceivers from Tarluz. 

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

Worth Reading (And Watching):

August 2022

The First Transcontinental Telephone Line  began operation on  July 29th in 1915 - 3400 miles between New York and San Francisco - required over 100,000 telephone poles! Wonders of World Engineering

Google Fiber still adding cities - Mesa, Arizona next stop. Lightwave. Mesa will become the 14th Google Fiber FTTH city.

Using existing coax cable In MDUs for Internet with MOCA. Ignore the title of this article - that's what it's about. Broadband Communities

FBA Broadband Infrastructure Playbook  The Fiber Broadband Association, the trade association of fiber optic equipment suppliers and no relation to the FOA, has created a comprehensive guide for organizations wanting to apply for US IIJA/BEAD funding.


July 2022

Vermont not waiting for federal BEAD grants, funding broadband development now. ILSR.

Four Wind Farms Constructed at once. T&D World. Wind power needs lots of fiber optics - OPGW.





Lightwave's Summer Issue focuses on fiber in the CATV industry and more.

March 2022

Every State Has a Chance to Deliver a “Fiber for All” Broadband Future: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Pew Charitable Trusts has released a couple of new tools for state broadband offices preparing for the influx of federal funding. ILSR

PEW Charitable Trusts has a broadband initiative that aims to help local networks get started.

February 2022

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

 

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 - 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 Requies Looking Overheas 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.

How much fiber optic cable is manufactured each year? CRU Reports - unsurprisingly China is by far the largest market today

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

The Open Technology Institute at New America just published “The Cost of Connectivity 2020,”

US Ignite and Altman Solon issued “Broadband Models for Unserved and Underserved Communities”

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!

Another Source Of Articles On Fiber

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 

August 2022

August 2022 Questions were moved to the Technical Section above, with longer answers covering interpreting OTDR tests.

Managing And Maintaining a Fiber Optic Cable Plant During Its Lifetime.

Interpreting Customer Spec For Cable Plant Loss

Test Source Variations
Q: When we plug in the patch cable to use as a reference to get ready for our insertion loss test, our power meter gives us different readings each time we plug in and unplug the cable.  Is this normal?
A: If you plug a reference cable into a source, it is likely to have some variation in coupling each time so the power out of the cable is different. Once you plug the cable into the source and a reference set with the meter, you should not remove the cable until you finish testing.


Test Source Modulation Options
Q: Our light source user’s manual listed the following: “In the actual project, it is necessary to load the audio carrier in the optical signal to identify the optical fiber. The equipment contains three carrier frequencies, which are 270Hz, 1KHZ, and 2KHz.” Can you tell me if I need to be concerned about setting this to a certain value?
A: Sources often have an option to modulate the source for use with another instrument called a “fiber identifier.” Then it offers the output as DC or CW (a steady unvarying signal) or modulated at 270HZ,1 or 2 kHz. When testing loss the DC or CW setting should be used.

June 2022

Differences in OTDR Traces
Q: What causes the differences in otdr traces for fibre cores that are in the same cable?
A: Several things can cause the fibers  in a cable to have differences in their OTDR traces:
Differences in fiber from different production batches including fiber that may come from different preforms.
Differences in stress on the fiber caused by inconsistent cable design and manufacture
Of course differences in splices including stress on fibers in a splice closure and terminations including stress on fibers in racks and panels.

"Mining" Cables In Data Centers
Q: Is there any documentation out there on best practices for DC cable mining? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
A: This has been a topic in premises cabling since first proposed by NFPA  for the NEC twenty years ago. FOA has gotten this kind of question before for many different circumstances, but I must admit that I know of no recommended procedures or standards for the removal of abandoned cable.

Cable “mining” often refers to the removal of underfloor cable, may apply to cables in trays and is hard to get information online - search for “Cable mining” and you get links to sellers of cables designed to be installed in mines (coal, salt, minerals, etc.) underground!

The biggest problem with removing unused cables is identifying the cables to remove. Underlloor cables are particularly bad, it seems, since you have generations of abandoned cables, often poorly marked, sometimes mixed with power cables. With metallic cables, you can sometimes use an ancient telephone tool, a “toner” to trace cables, With fiber you just have to be careful that you identify the cable before you cut.
It’s always better to remove small sections, especially if you can tug on the cable and verify it each time before cutting. We’ve seen photos of an early data center with cable trays 2 feet deep by 4 feet wide full of about 4,000 fiber optic cables. After seeing that you understand why the new high fiber count cables (1728, 34456 and 6912 fibers) are desirable!

Calibration of Fiber Optic Power Meters
Q: Why does this tester sold so cheap show the same value for 1310 and 1550?

A:  We’ve purchased and tested several of these inexpensive meters based on questions from our instructors and readers. They have a similar “feature” - they are not calibrated to international standards of optical power, so when you measure dBm, the result at any wavelength may vary considerably from a meter by a major manufacturer who does calibrate properly.

However, these meters have a menu item that allows you to calibrate them yourself. We've calibrated all the ones we tested to match our calibrated instruments and after that they work OK.

Interestingly, they show loss as negative dB, which is how we think it should be. Some large, famous manufacturers manipulated the standards to make loss a positive number, so if you measure gain, it is considered a fault.   

More Q&A in the FOA FAQs Page  

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



Download your free copy of

FOA Network Of Approved Schools Continues To Grow

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

FOA/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 10 minute YouTube video that explains what OJT is, who uses it and how to use Fiber U to organize and enhance OJT for new employees and experienced workers too. Lecture 62: On The Job Training For Fiber Optics Using Fiber U     

FOA "Work-To-Cert" Program

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 Guide "Basics Of Fiber Optics" Now Available Online in Portuguese (6/2020)

Here is the FOA Guide in Portuguese, Spanish and French translations.

Time To Learn - Online

And Fiber U has the new Fiber U DIY Basic Skills Lab lesson with directions on how to purchase inexpensive tools online and use them to learn basic fiber optic skills. Videoconferencing allows the instructor to remotely monitor their work and provide help as needed. Contact the FOA for more information.


FOA Zoom Exam Proctoring

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 "Work-to-Cert" 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.

FOA School Offers Toolkit With Online Training

Slayton Solutions (FOA Approved School #156) is offering a simple fiber optic tool kit that includes a 29-piece set of fiber optic tools and a power meter along with training videos and online instruction for only $499. 29 Piece Kit includes all tools and devices a technician needs to install fiber optic connectors and test optical power.  Information on the kit is available on YouTube. You can contact them for more information at  slaytonsolutions@sbcglobal.net or https://www.fiberopticsinstitute.com

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.

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:

NEW: 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

     

 
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 and French (print and online) and Portuguese (online only.)

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

Safety Leader Magazine

Safety Leader, a new quarterly magazine, informs and educates electrical contractors on safety from various angles—electrical, workplace, PPE, regulations, leadership, line work, NFPA 70E, and more. Safety Leader is bundled with ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR in February, May, August and November. To receive Safety Leader subscribe to ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR magazine here or subscribe to the ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR newsletter here.

Global Excavation Safety Conference

GlobalExcavationSafetyConference.com:

 


The magazine, dp-Pro, sponsor of the conference, has also published it's latest issue with an article by FOA on "New Construction Techniques in Fiber Optics" and a overview of the FOA. You can read the magazine here.

When You Bury Marker Tape, Bury One That Will Work (July 2021)

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

FOA was 25 years old July 2020 - Read about FOA's history

Learn More About FOA's History.

Contact Us
The Fiber Optic Association Inc.
http://www.foa.org or email <info@foa.org>

Phone: 1-760-451-3655

       

 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.