Oct. 19, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Demonstrating their mutual drive to provide technical leadership for the industry, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and CommScope announce that they are partnering to offer training through SCTE Chapters and Meeting Groups on best practices for broadband installation and troubleshooting.
A new course, titled “Drop Installation Fundamentals: The Core to Network Reliability,” kicks off this new partnership and will instruct installers, both new hires and those needing to refresh their skills, on basic industry standards for properly performing a broadband installation.
Using an SCTE Pd (Professional Development)-approved curriculum, CommScope instructors will travel to any of SCTE’s 68 chapters and meeting groups to conduct the course in one four-hour session. The course will debut at the SCTE Great Lakes Chapter on Nov. 4 and will be available to all SCTE chapters in 2010.
The course will provide the dual benefit of helping installers achieve the highest standards of professional craftsmanship while equipping cable operators with a confident workforce that can promote and ensure the reliability of their networks.
Successful completion of the “Drop Installation Fundamentals” course will advance its attendees toward achieving the SCTE Broadband Premises Installer (BPI) certification. As an added benefit, CommScope will provide non-SCTE members who successfully complete the course with a one year SCTE membership.
“I am excited that CommScope and we at SCTE have put our heads together to address a critical industry need,” said SCTE President/CEO Mark Dzuban. “Communications networks, no matter how sophisticated, cannot function as intended without the upholding of basic competencies that are required of our industry’s technical workforce.”
The course will comprise a dozen objectives for students, including teaching them to recognize basic analog cable network configurations; describe how signal flows from the network to the customer’s television; demonstrate proper cable handling, preparation, and connectorization techniques of cables used within the drop system; and distinguish passive and active devices within the customer’s premises including discussing their functions and use.
“SCTE and CommScope share a vision for our industry to benefit from the successful installation of advanced broadband networks,” said Jim Hughes, executive vice president, Broadband Sales and Marketing, CommScope. “Our experience has shown that proper installation practices are a key element to system reliability and performance.
