Internet access has become an indispensable part of our lives and our expectations for high speed communications have grown. Optical fibre plays a key role in most service providers’ plans to satisfy the demand for fast broadband services. Technologies such as ADSL and VDSL that provide high speed broadband over copper wires are also still important especially where the use of fibre is uneconomic.

PTT’s unrivalled catalogue of online telecoms related courses includes several courses dealing with the technologies that allow high speed Internet access:

PTT’s new course FAB: “Optical access networks”  concentrates on the practical aspects of installing and testing fibre to the home (FTTH) connections. It also describes fibre to the building (FTTB) and fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) installations. This interactive course was developed with co-operation from leading FTTx equipment manufacturers ensuring its accuracy and relevance.

The companion course FAA: “Passive optical networks” describes how fibre connections are shared by a number of customers using GPON or EPON techniques.

The just released updated course DLA: “ADSL principles” discusses the limitations of existing copper-wire access networks and describes how ADSL and VDSL techniques maximise data transfer rates over copper pairs.

This course joins its companion course DLB: “DSL systems” which provides an in-depth investigation of the structure, functional components, operation and testing of systems that provide DSL services to customers.