Training
trān: 1. to make proficient by instruction and practice, as in some art, profession, or work.
What We Do
While vendors have been curtailing their training options, we've been expanding ours.
Because we only offer training on systems with which we have had extensive experience ourselves, we can show your students how a system works, and how it interconnects to other systems within a greater network. Our training programs not only touch on what's "in the manual", but also what isn't, showing some of the best practices and undocumented knowledge we've learned over the years for each system or subject.
Training outlines can be provided upon request, and can vary in content as updates are made. We often customize course content, and can create a custom course for you outright. Pricing varies due to the length, location and number of students, and the exact requirements. Please Contact us to learn more.
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Because we only offer training on systems with which we have had extensive experience ourselves, we can show your students how a system works, and how it interconnects to other systems within a greater network. Our training programs not only touch on what's "in the manual", but also what isn't, showing some of the best practices and undocumented knowledge we've learned over the years for each system or subject.
Training outlines can be provided upon request, and can vary in content as updates are made. We often customize course content, and can create a custom course for you outright. Pricing varies due to the length, location and number of students, and the exact requirements. Please Contact us to learn more.
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Telecom - CO Switching
Telecom - Transport
Telecom - Access
Telecom - CO
Courses include full color slides and are based upon recent material from both installation & decomm work, providing highly detailed slides based on a modern CO environment.
- Nokia (AGCS/Lucent) GTD-5® EAX: Maintenance (5 day), Support (5 day), Translations (4 day)
- Ribbon (Stromberg-Carlson) DCO®: Maintenance (5 day), Support (5 day)
- Nokia (Lucent) 5ESS®: Maintenance (5 day)
- Ribbon (Nortel) DMS-100: Maintenance (5 day), POTS Translations (5 day)
- Ribbon (Nortel) DMS-10: Maintenance (5 day), POTS Translations (3 day)
- Ribbon (Siemens) EWSD: Maintenance (5 day)
Telecom - Transport
- Ciena 6500 (D & S series): Maintenance (5 day)
- Fujitsu FLASHWAVE® 9500: Maintenance (5 day)
- DWDM (multi-vendor) Bootcamp: Maintenance (5 day)
- T-Carrier/HDSL/Special Services Data: Maintenance (5 day)
- CCSS7 (SS7) & SigTran: Maintenance (3 day)
Telecom - Access
- Tellabs 1000 (AFC UMC1000): Maintenance (5 day)
- Adtran Total Access® 5000: Maintenance (5 day)
- Calix E-Series (E3, E7, E9 - EXA or AXOS): Maintenance (5 day)
- Calix FTTP (incl. B6, C7 and/or E7 EXA): Maintenance (5 day)
- Special Services (copper, fiber): Maintenance (3 day)
Telecom - CO
- Central Office Bootcamp (5 day)
- Central Office Grounding & Power Systems (3 day)
Courses include full color slides and are based upon recent material from both installation & decomm work, providing highly detailed slides based on a modern CO environment.
Networks
- TCP/IP Networks (pre-certification) (5 day)
- Cat 5-8 & Fiber Certification (3 day)
- Wi-Fi Install & Troubleshoot (3 day)
- Microwave Link Install & Maintenance (4 day)
Standards
- Telcordia Specifications (specs such as TR-8, TR-57, GR-63 (NEBS), GR-303 (remotes), GR-1275 (install/decomm/seismic)
- Grounding and Power (versions for CO, Data Center, and Enterprise) (3 day)
- NFPA NEC 70 (2 day)
- NFPA NEC 70E (1 day)
- NFPA NEC 79 (2 day)
A real challenge with training is getting usable knowledge passed efficiently and thoroughly. Some of the training methods we have observed do not seem to succeed in this way. We saw an opportunity to offer training ourselves -- we found how to make it fun, thorough, and effective.
We have also found that certain skills are never trained -- like how to troubleshoot, or how to document. Many students are thrown into training and at its conclusion, are assumed to be master problem-solvers. As discussed in our Support page, troubleshooting is a multi-faceted skill that requires experience and direction.
We have also found that certain skills are never trained -- like how to troubleshoot, or how to document. Many students are thrown into training and at its conclusion, are assumed to be master problem-solvers. As discussed in our Support page, troubleshooting is a multi-faceted skill that requires experience and direction.
Planning Your Training
It's a truism: most would agree that training is invaluable and even essential, yet training budgets have sometimes dropped, even despite the revenue potential of modern circuits and services. Some companies have found it difficult to justify formal training. We understand your concerns. Please consider the following advantages when using our training, and put them into your business case. Which benefits would be worthwhile to you?
Telecommunications training in particular is traditionally a time-consuming and expensive investment. We have worked very hard to change that. For a fraction of past training costs, we can give your students the tools and practice they need to become significantly more competent, helping themselves and customers. When business-casing training, remember the hidden costs of not providing employees the advantage of such targeted knowledge, including the tips and tricks of the trade that are not always published in documentation.
We would be happy to hear from you.
To learn a bit more about troubleshooting in an amusing way, have a look at our Logic Primer, which provides light yet helpful look at troubleshooting skills.
It's a truism: most would agree that training is invaluable and even essential, yet training budgets have sometimes dropped, even despite the revenue potential of modern circuits and services. Some companies have found it difficult to justify formal training. We understand your concerns. Please consider the following advantages when using our training, and put them into your business case. Which benefits would be worthwhile to you?
- What if we could improve your average employee's productivity by just 10%? What about 50%? Or even more?
- What if each employee became a better overall trouble-shooter, no matter what system or problem they worked on, for today and the rest of their career?
- What if we could offer you high quality training by coming to your premise, lowering the expense of student travel?
- What if we could reduce the training time by 50%, or even to 70%?
Telecommunications training in particular is traditionally a time-consuming and expensive investment. We have worked very hard to change that. For a fraction of past training costs, we can give your students the tools and practice they need to become significantly more competent, helping themselves and customers. When business-casing training, remember the hidden costs of not providing employees the advantage of such targeted knowledge, including the tips and tricks of the trade that are not always published in documentation.
We would be happy to hear from you.
To learn a bit more about troubleshooting in an amusing way, have a look at our Logic Primer, which provides light yet helpful look at troubleshooting skills.
How We Do It
Telecom Central Office training is a specialty of ours. At AG Advice and Support, we have created targeted and detailed courses that can bring new and inexperienced employees from zero-knowledge to near tier 2 (mid-expertise) level in just one or two weeks. How is this possible?
When first rolled-out, large central office switching systems were state-of-the-art, but had many different kinds of modules serving different purposes. This required weeks of training, and differs largely from modern data centers today which tend to use the same type of equipment over and over in mass scale. For telco training, a single course might sometimes last over a month, and a curriculum of courses might require months of training to bring technicians to a high degree of competence.
Over time, training periods shortened, partly because of a more knowledgable workforce, but also because they had to: the cost was high. Technicians were more familiar with the general principles of digital communications and computers, plus a reduced focus to maintenance rather than full system build-out also meant that not so much training was required. Despite this trend, several shorter courses might still be necessary to bring technicians up to speed.
As copper networks have continued to trend down in favor of optical, a familiar problem has occurred: legacy technology still needs to run for institutional or infrastructure reasons (i.e. zero-latency trunks, FAA, E911, CO-powered circuits, etc.). Large switching offices must still be supported, even though they are not making the revenue they used to. Unfortunately, the loss of skilled talent also means that business-critical training must continue for new employees, who are required to immediately fill the vacancies left behind, but with much fewer resources and time to do so.
When first rolled-out, large central office switching systems were state-of-the-art, but had many different kinds of modules serving different purposes. This required weeks of training, and differs largely from modern data centers today which tend to use the same type of equipment over and over in mass scale. For telco training, a single course might sometimes last over a month, and a curriculum of courses might require months of training to bring technicians to a high degree of competence.
Over time, training periods shortened, partly because of a more knowledgable workforce, but also because they had to: the cost was high. Technicians were more familiar with the general principles of digital communications and computers, plus a reduced focus to maintenance rather than full system build-out also meant that not so much training was required. Despite this trend, several shorter courses might still be necessary to bring technicians up to speed.
As copper networks have continued to trend down in favor of optical, a familiar problem has occurred: legacy technology still needs to run for institutional or infrastructure reasons (i.e. zero-latency trunks, FAA, E911, CO-powered circuits, etc.). Large switching offices must still be supported, even though they are not making the revenue they used to. Unfortunately, the loss of skilled talent also means that business-critical training must continue for new employees, who are required to immediately fill the vacancies left behind, but with much fewer resources and time to do so.
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We know how to engage students, and keep them interested. We know how to target what is needed, and what can probably be left-out. And we know many of those undocumented "secrets" and tricks that experienced techs took with them when they moved on. By making a fun yet detailed course of training, we have seen hundreds of techs go from little or no knowledge to a confident, grounded understanding of large computerized switching systems in a very short time. We also see mid-tier and highly-experienced techs who are taking a "refresh" walk away with new knowledge and skills they didn't have just a few days earlier.
You probably haven't seen many training materials like ours before: most slides are in full color, with diagrams designed to show both functional operation, and process of operation (e.g. inter-system connections), and the physical arrangement of equipment. These are reinforced with color photos, and our own description networks based on years of experience. We convey a great deal of information in just a few pages.
AG Advice and Support also offers you a choice of training in your online environment or within an offline setting, all at your premise with realistic examples. All online work and exercises are non-intrusive, yet detailed. Our database of past faults is used for detailed, real-life troubleshooting. And if you need a little material from one course, plus some material from another, all put into one efficient customized training manual, we can do that. Ask us what we can help you with, and we'll provide you with some interesting options.
No bland slides with canned artwork here. Pages are detailed with full color and figures to help memorization and appearance.
We know from experience what your people will probably need to know and what they probably won’t, so we also add some of those little SME-like tidbits that might come in handy.
We know from experience what your people will probably need to know and what they probably won’t, so we also add some of those little SME-like tidbits that might come in handy.
Student materials are designed and intended to be used over and over for easy look-up in the future, and usually include a mandatory segment, optional steps, and on-page glossaries of difficult terms and acronyms, so students aren't left wondering what they just saw. Color, fonts, space, pictures, and other print techniques are used to help keep the information distinctive and interesting. Key procedures or slides can be laminated, so you always have a durable and readable copy which your dog cannot eat.
For example, several systems can require tech to debug a problem by breaking down a switch message into its machine-code segments, decoding them from their hexadecimal, BCD, binary or octal formats. Hex truth tables are a little bit like using slide-rulers -- using them is a waning skill. Yet you might still need to use them.
How to make this easy? We all learned how to count to 10, so we just show how to count to 16, using a few additional letters. Using those numbers, we then show techs how to look-up these numbered codes, which tells them which module to focus their troubleshooting.
Not everyone learns the same way. Some like all the details, looking "under a microscope", while others have to see the big picture first, with the "view from 30,000 feet". We teach both ways, and add a few other techniques as well. This keeps everyone engaged, while not over-stressing detailed material that won't be of interest to everybody. We then add a bit of fun and hands-on, and watch the magic of learning happen.