More Bandwidth

Even the President Supports It

The March 2004 issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance has good news for anyone trained in Fiber Optic Cabling.  Fiber use is on the rise.  Everyone wants more bandwidth, and that means not only upgrading existing backbone installations, it also means taking fiber right to the device itself.

Fiber to the X, it’s called, installing fiber in both commercial and residential buildings, putting in fatter and fatter data pipes for high-speed Internet, high resolution video, fully featured phone service and a dozen other things nobody’s thought of yet.  This applies not only to businesses and houses, but multi-tenant dwellings as well.  Switch capabilities that used to be in the central office can now be found inside the apartment building.  Landlords can now offer tenants a roof over their heads, and IP service, voice and data too.

By 2005, surveys suggest a 36% increase in the use of fiber.  Gigabit Ethernet, 10-Gigabit Ethernet—it’s the old law of supply and demand.  Carrie Higbie, global network applications manager for The Siemon Corporation, and a recent C-Tech Tech Talk speaker, is quoted as saying that all kinds of applications will require the higher bandwidth, and merely increasing compression ratios is not going to be enough to satisfy them.  

Even President Bush recognizes the importance of higher bandwidth.  In a recent speech, he promoted permanent tax incentives for broadband services.

Everybody wants more of everything, and fiber is the way to deliver it.  But the demand is for more than bandwidth and cable.  We’re also going to need trained people to install it.  That’s where CTFs come in.

All the experts polled for the Cabling Installation & Maintenance article agree that training needs are going to be crucial.  Nick Raymond, a telecommunications consultant for Purdue University, puts it simply and straightforwardly: “I think everyone needs as much training as they can possible get.” 

The article tells us techs that know copper will have to learn how to splice fiber, handle connectors and clean them properly. Sound familiar?  That’s just part of the C-Tech Fiber Optics curriculum.  The market for fiber installations is going to be there, and that means the market for fiber training is going to be there.  Contractors are going to need trained techs, and your CTF can be the one to supply them.

Think now in terms of newspaper and radio ads that can stress this coming trend.  You can read the whole article on the Cabling Installation & Maintenance website: www.cable-install.com.  Just search for “FTTX” when you get there.