Anyone here work with fiber optics?

[mach1033]

I'm going for a promotion with in my job as a fiber tech and was curious what some of your opinions are about this line of work? I have been reading up on it cause I dont want to look like a fool the day of the interview and there is a ton of shit to learn about this. Seems like this will be some challenging work and I'm looking forward to it.

 

[wieduwilt]

All I know is a buddy of mine has it and its faster than FastFreddy's FGT LOL

 

[chrisheltra]

I got certified 3 years ago to work with it but never touched the stuff since.

 

[BigSweezey]

In what capacity?
I don't deal with nearly as much as my transmission tech, but it is part of the job. Mostly doing splices and simple stuff like that.

 

[yelostang]

I took an E.E. design class last year that focused on fiber optics and one of the main theories we used was Snell's Law...might not be a bad idea to look that one over.

 

[Silver2003Cobra]

I took a class on how to terminate the ends of it years ago, but haven't done much with it since then.

 

[mach1033]

I work for cablevision and if I were to get this promotion I would be working from the node to inside plant. I have been reading this site called Lennie Lightwave guide to fiber optics. Lot of good info there. Basically what I wanted to know is how difficult a job this is to learn.

 

[Nick13]

I work for a telecommunications company that deals with fiber on a daily basis. It's quite simple actually. In my experience the most complicated part is identifying the different ends. ST, SC, LC, MTRJ, etc. I deal mostly with ST and SC ends. Usually single mode fiber has a yellow jacket, where multimode's is orange. An exception to that rule is for outside plant fiber. There are also all different diameters of fiber, but I work primarily with 62.5 micron.

Edit: I just saw your last post. The job its self is moderately difficult. You need steady hands for terminating, and even more so for splicing. Once you learn how to do the ends, it is just perfecting your methods. It takes time and practice. Once you get used to it you will speed up, and learn a few tricks.

In my company we don't allow for anything with a 2db loss or greater on short distances. For long distances with multiple jumps the loss must be below 1db.

 

[mach1033]

I work for a telecommunications company that deals with fiber on a daily basis. It's quite simple actually. In my experience the most complicated part is identifying the different ends. ST, SC, LC, MTRJ, etc. I deal mostly with ST and SC ends. Usually single mode fiber has a yellow jacket, where multimode's is orange. An exception to that rule is for outside plant fiber. There are also all different diameters of fiber, but I work primarily with 62.5 micron.

Edit: I just saw your last post. The job its self is moderately difficult. You need steady hands for terminating, and even more so for splicing. Once you learn how to do the ends, it is just perfecting your methods. It takes time and practice. Once you get used to it you will speed up, and learn a few tricks.

In my company we don't allow for anything with a 2db loss or greater on short distances. For long distances with multiple jumps the loss must be below 1db.

Cool man thanks. I'm looking forward to this job

 

[Serpent]

My girl has a friend that works for Sony and swears that the future is streaming video online, the problem is we (US) are currently on regular cable which is slow for streaming.
There will be a time where everything will be switched to fiber optics, he told me Japan and only a few other countries are the only few who have complete fiber optic lines used for internet.

OP, I believe fiber optics is the future man, most likely it will start in big cities then span out to the burbs and rural areas.

 

[ford fanatic]

My friend started his own company after the guy he worked for went out of business. He makes great money, and has come a long way in the last 5-8 years. I have worked for him many times splicing and testing mostly. It's a great business to be in, good luck.

 

[thepizz]

Verizon does fibers to the house for their Fios service. All my friends that work for them learned as they went and said it's complex on paper but fairly easy to learn and adapt your cable skills to the fiber. Good luck.

 

[BigSweezey]

A lot of the cable companies offer fiber directly to the location, mostly to commercial accounts because of cost and honestly very few people need it or would even benefit from it.
Right now our newer stuff is node+0 which means there aren't any amps or other active devices between the house and the node...and your pretty much within throwing distance of the node.
New stuff they were demo for us is basically fiber to the house with a mini node on premises. Very cool stuff, and will make my job 1000x's easier. Plus the stuff like direcTV, I believe, offers. One main control box in a closet somewhere, boxes for the TV's ran off of it. Everything will be connected, and one step closer to true on demand media. All very geeky stuff.

I work for cablevision and if I were to get this promotion I would be working from the node to inside plant. I have been reading this site called Lennie Lightwave guide to fiber optics. Lot of good info there. Basically what I wanted to know is how difficult a job this is to learn.

Sounds like our transmission tech. He handles pretty much the same, plus all our PON system and the tower cloud(cell towers), and everything leaving the hub sites and headend.
IMO if it's gonna be a trial by fire situation, I wouldn't wanna do it. I work outside plant aka maintenance tech aka lineman for cable...mostly from the node out but technically it's everything from the headend to the tap. If it was OJT, sign me up. I wouldn't say it's hard...but there is plenty to learn.