Fiber/OSP Technician Training and Apprenticeship Programs

Tue Dec 5 22:50:15 UTC 2023

On 2023-11-16 2:51 pm, Rhys Barrie via NANOG wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I've recently been working with our county's broadband task force,
> investigating the expansion and equity of broadband networks on a
> local and state level. Through that, it's become clear that there's a
> painful shortage of fiber / outside plant technicians in the state of
> Michigan (if not nation-wide) in order to fulfill the workforce
> requirements of maintaining the current broadband fiber infrastructure
> in the state, much less to fuel fiber expansion, and especially in
> rural areas. There appear to be few options for training the required
> workforce, especially outside of the large enterprises that have the
> resources to run their own internal programs, and small (or even
> mid-sized) ISPs seem to be left with predominantly informal
> person-to-person transfer of internal knowledge, assuming that they
> have the required internal knowledge in the first place. This need for
> a qualified workforce is exacerbated in the face of the multitude of
> state and federal programs to encourage broadband internet expansion
> and equity, such as the upcoming $42.5 billion in BEAD grant funding
> and corresponding construction starting in ~12-18 months state- and
> nation-wide.
> 
> As a result, our workforce development team over here at Mott
> Community College (Genesee County, MI) is working to develop a fiber /
> outside plant training and apprenticeship program in order to help
> address this shortage of qualified personnel and training options at a
> local and state level. We're looking for some industry contacts that
> would be interested in collaborating with us to establish high-level
> requirements regarding what skills need to be taught to prospective
> fiber / outside plant technicians, what qualifications trainees should
> have after completion in order to fulfill current workforce demands,
> and to otherwise provide input in sketching out a high-level
> curriculum. We're looking for feedback from a wide cross-section of
> industry stakeholders -- large enterprise backbone transit providers,
> rural residential ISPs, fiber co-ops and municipal networks,
> operations and outside plant managers, etc. -- in order to determine
> what the industry wants and needs, and how the entire community
> college system can help meet those needs.
> 
> If anyone thinks that they have valuable input to provide regarding
> these workforce requirements, or knows the right people to talk to,
> please reach out and let me know!
> 
> Rhys Barrie (He/Him)
> Network Engineer - Mott Community College
> Member - Genesee County Broadband Task Force
> (810) 762-0030 | rhys.barrie at mcc.edu | https://mcc.edu/

The Fiber Optic Association may be of interest to you. "The FOA is an 
international non-profit educational association that is chartered to 
promote professionalism in fiber optics through education, certification 
and standards."

https://www.thefoa.org/

I read a couple of their e-books to self-teach myself some fiber 
knowledge circa 2016 and it was good material.