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Fiber U


Jim Hayes opens the first session of Fiber U 1993 in Long Beach CA. (C) 2011, The FOA.

Eric Pearson lectures to all the attendees (~225) at the Long beach Fiber U.

A smaller classroom session at a Fiber U in Boston.

Conference rooms became packed classrooms. Here Doug Elliott from Toronto lectures on testing.

Jim Hayes teaches about optical fiber.

Hands-on sessions have smaller groups learning the processes of installing fiber, like termination.

Each attendee has the tools and supplies needed to properly learn the skills needed for successful installation.

Dick Scheer of Northern Lights Cable brings a complete pulling rig with conduit and innerduct, plus enough cable for all attendees to work with.

And NLC brought cables of many types so the students would learn the differences in construction, pulling processes and preparation.

And NLC brought cables of many types so the students would learn the differences in construction, pulling processes and preparation.

Good motto!

A large ballroom was turned into a demo room with manufactures connecting into an actual operating network to demo splicing and testing.

Hardware on demo was usually connected into the network. We even had a CCTV camera monitoring the OSP work in the tent outside.

Companies brought racks of equipment to show attendees how the final product should look.

Let's splice into the Fiber U backbone, then test it.

We even had sessions on "Cat 5" for the attendees interested in premises cabling.

Outdoors we set up a tent for the OSP manufacturers to teach students how to use their produces.

We ahd plenty of space so students could learn how to handle cable properly, like this "figure 8" session.

With lots of room, we could actually assemble conduit, run innerduct, figure 8 cable and pull it into the ducts, building an actual fiber backbone in the hotel.

Students were shown all the types of tools used with fiber and taught how to use most of them.

Brad Pelsue brought OSP pulling gear to teach students how to pull cable properly.

You need lots of space for some of the OSP gear.

Polywater ran sessions on cable lubrication - messy but necessary!

Small groups ensures that every student gets a chance to work with the gear.

Manufacturers brought large splice closures to let students learn how to properly run cables into the closures.

Dan Silver of 3M had several large closures for students to work with.

The tent allowed enough room to show how conduit was placed.

Fiber U had a large international presence. Here are the attendees at Long Beach, representing countries as far away as Russia!

Lennie Lightwave was created as the mascot of Fiber U in 1993. He has been described as "the most famous guy in fiber optics!"

Lennie was used to illustrate many of the Fiber U training documents, like this illustration for fiber optic testing.