New Product, Fiber Trainer, Make Teaching Fiber Consistent and Easier

Unlock the secrets of state-of-the-art fiber optic training with our special guest Oleg from Tempo Communications, who brings a wealth of knowledge to this episode's table. Prepare to elevate your understanding of ICT professional development as we tackle the challenges and opportunities in teaching fiber optic cabling, highlighting the innovative 'fiber trainer' that's changing the game. Oleg walks us through Tempo’s evolution into a powerhouse of communications testing and maintenance, offering a glimpse into their comprehensive lineup that's transforming industry standards.

Our conversation doesn't stop there—we navigate the critical nuances of fiber optic maintenance, emphasizing cleanliness and the meticulous art of splicing. Discover how tools like Visual Fault Locators and OTDRs play pivotal roles in ensuring flawless fiber optic handling. Considering setting up your own fiber lab? We've got the practical steps covered, from selecting the right equipment to understanding the financial investments. Plus, we shed light on invaluable resources and educational support like Tempo University, making this a must-listen for anyone looking to sharpen their skills or carve a new path in the dynamic realm of fiber optics.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey wire monkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cableing. This episode we're talking about things you need to have if you want to teach a fiber class. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, project managers, estimators, customers, ict personnel. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm to help us educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Thursday nights, 6pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, facebook, linkedin, youtube where you get to ask your favorite RCDD and you know that's me your questions on installation, certification, design, project management. I even do career path questions, but I can hear you now. But, chuck, I'm driving my truck at 6pm, I don't want to get into an accident. I record them and you can watch them on the webpage at Let'sTalkCableingcom and also, while this show is free and will always remain free. If you would like to support this content, would you click on that QR code right there? If you can buy me a cup of coffee, you can even schedule a 15 minute one on one call with me after hours, of course, and I'm also looking to accept some corporate sponsorship as well, as long, as you understand, it's a vendor neutral platform.

Speaker 1: 1:57

So, as I said in the intro, fiber is really taking off, especially with the broadband initiative. A lot of companies are realizing that their techs aren't properly trained on how to do fiber, whether it's fiber to their home or premise distribution fiber outside plant fiber. They're in a rush to try to train people and, as a professional trainer, I can tell you right now one of the hardest things that they teach is fiber, because it's hard to replicate in a classroom environment. Well, consistently hard to replicate. So you know me, you know I read cable installation and maintenance magazine.

Speaker 1: 2:38

You should too and they came up with an article on February 22nd on this new thing called a fiber trainer. So I read the article and talked about all the things this thing could do, packed up in this nice neat little case, and I saw that it came from tempo communications. Well, I happened to know a couple of people who work at tempo communications, so I reached out to them and said hey, come on the show, let's talk about this new fiber trainer thing you've got. And after I twisted their arm a little bit and dangled the carrot out in front of them, they said yes, yes. So welcome to the show, oleg. How you doing, my friend?

Speaker 2: 3:14

Chuck, it's a great pleasure and an honor to be here on let's Talk Cabling on your podcast. It's amazing to be on this side of the camera as opposed to just watching.

Speaker 1: 3:23

There you go. There you go. So for those people who don't know you and or tempo communications, can you just give us the 30,000 foot view of who you and who Tempo is?

Speaker 2: 3:35

I'll start with Tempo. So Tempo Communications is a company that's been around for 40 years, close to half a century. We started as a very, very small company out east, moved here to Southern California back in the early 90s and a lot of people know us from our sidekick that we had, way back in the day, dsl testing, ethernet testing, coax testing, so really physical layer fiber test products and tools that we've been selling, also under the Paladin brand, for many, many years. Back in 2001, we were purchased by Greenly, so a lot of people know Greenly as an electrical company, electrical tools, so we were part of the Greenly family as Greenly Communications for almost 20 years. Then, back in 2019, there were some rumblings, sales purchases, sales purchases, and now we're Tempo Communications again.

Speaker 2: 4:27

We are a wholly independent company, so we used to be part of a huge company. Now we're just tiny little Tempo selling tools and test equipment for communications, whether it's copper or fiber or even wireless. So that's where we're at Me personally, I am the head of marketing and product management here at Tempo Communications. I've been here since the Greenly days. My background is in technology and test and doing product management for close to three decades now, so I'm super excited to be here. I think we got a lot of great things to do for the community, for the industry, and thank you very much for letting me talk about it here.

Speaker 1: 5:04

My pleasure, like I said when I saw that thing, because, like I said, as a professional instructor, it's hard to teach in multiple cities anything copper or fiber and do it consistently. So the class that they take in Raleigh is going to be the exact same class that somebody takes in Sheboygan. It's hard to replicate it. So it's the same thing ever. Anytime I see something that makes a job easier as a trainer or even as a training department, I always kind of key into that and I didn't realize I hate to admit this I did not realize all of the stuff that Tempo made until right before this show. I mean, I've always been familiar with the toner and probes and the sidekick and stuff like that. But man, you guys have a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, and I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I mean you need to be a little bit better at getting that information out there. So, as old salty dogs, no more of that stuff, right?

Speaker 2: 6:00

Well, that's actually part of our story also is we have a really good knowledge base in the industry from our copper stuff, so tone and probes, strippers, cutters, slitters, crimpers, TDRs. We have the TV 220, which has been selling for 30 years, even back before that to the Techtronics days. So we have a legacy of copper products. But our fiber products that you've been selling now for 15 years kind of got lost in that, and so one of the reasons that we're really focusing on training, obviously, in addition to benefiting the industry, is to let people know hey, we're out here, we're doing this, we care about this, we're experts, we've been doing it for a long time and we're out there to try to help technicians, electricians, guys in the field, the muddy boots guys we think of them sometimes even though the muddy boots are indoors. We are doing the evangelical work of letting everybody know that we have products for them. Nice.

Speaker 1: 7:00

But we can't talk tempo without talking about Tempo Bob. Where is Tempo Bob?

Speaker 2: 7:07

Yeah, you know what. I saw that video that you did on social media and, to be perfectly honest, I had to really think back to who that even was with some marketing campaign the marketing team did a number of years ago. I don't think a lot of people like that very much. So, yeah, to be honest with you, I don't really know a whole lot about it.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Yeah, well, we need to fix that. We need to fix that. But let's get back to that fiber trainer, right? So, like I said, I just saw that article in Cable Installation Management Magazine. So it's a new product for you, right? It's only been out what six months or so.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Actually we just formally launched it last month, in February, so it's brand new. We've been talking about it for a while. We've had different versions of it out there and showing it off at trade shows and things, but now it's formally out there, available to sell to any training organization. Try to make it real affordable. But yeah, this thing, you know real small Q package has a bunch of different ports for different types of testing.

Speaker 2: 8:09

You could test splicing, you could test microband, you could test damage fiber. You could use OTDR for the damage fiber in here. So right here in this little sticker you could see we have a damaged fiber in here, so it's 500 meters. Then there's a damage at a bad splice and then another 500 meters so there's a kilometer of fiber inside of here. And we have these two reels that have 15 meters of fiber as well. So we could do all kinds of great testing for, like I said, for splicing, for OPM readings, for OTDR readings, to actually do VFL testing for macroband and damage fiber.

Speaker 2: 8:53

So the basic idea here the basic idea is you could be a student straight out of high school. You could be somebody who just got an associate's degree in something else. You could be an electrician that has been a journeyman for 25 years and are just fiber curious and within two days training using this product and some of our other tools, you could be dangerous enough to go do some work in the field. You could get your hands on things and actually do more than just pull some fiber. You can actually splice, you can test, you can connect, you can make sure it all works.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So could you demonstrate to us how you would, because you and I you heard you talking about this before that we started the episode. 80% of all problems of fibers. What?

Speaker 2: 9:40

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning cleaning, cleaning.

Speaker 1: 9:41

So how would I use that fiber trainer to demonstrate the importance of cleaning?

Speaker 2: 9:48

So, first and foremost, every fiber trainer, you have to get this consumable kit which has a bunch of swabs for cleaning, that has this OptiClean for cleaning and has some some brand new cables for you to use. And you know, we've been on a bunch of these trainings now and the very first thing people do is they come in and they figure, oh well, this little dust cap, everything's clean. So I come in and I immediately go in and start plugging things in. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 10:19

The important thing in any fiber activity, particularly during our training, we emphasize over and over again nothing is clean unless you've cleaned it, unless you have physically just cleaned it. It is dirty. So these things are called dust caps. A lot of people will say they're called dust caps because they hold dust and because of the nature of fiber it's very, very small, very thin glass. So it's to an extent it's fragile, can scratch. So if you put dust on here and you rub it, no good, no good.

Speaker 2: 10:51

So the very first thing we always do is we take our trusty cleaner when we take the dust cap off, we take our fiber end, we click into a brand new piece of cleaning cloth and we perform just a little swipe. Now that's clean. Now that's not enough. You also have to make sure that the thing that you're connecting into is clean. So here let's say, we go in here with our fiber link out. That's right, here, a fiber link out. You go in here, give it a couple of cleans and then we put that back in the bag to use again. Just kidding, you never use it again. Single use only.

Speaker 1: 11:33

With that kit you can demonstrate how to clean a bulkhead connector, how to clean a patch core connector, and you could even I guess if you have a, a fiber scope, you could actually even look at it through the scope and measure the any contamination that might be on it. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 11:52

That is correct and, as a matter of fact, we have a fiber scope.

Speaker 2: 11:56

It's a little bit difficult in this environment to show you because this is based on a phone app, but you can open this thing up, put the connector in. I'm not going to do that because you need to clean, so so in order to not contaminate anything, I'm not going to do that but you put the the fiber connector in there, turn it on, connect it to your phone app and it shows you a nice, big, bright picture. If you want to see any of this stuff, it doesn't doesn't really do it justice doing the demonstrations this way. We have tons of video on our YouTube channel that shows really close-up, high res images to show exactly how how the stuff looks when you're actually using it. We got how-to's, we got all kinds of good stuff. So, anyway, but yeah, we have the fiber inspection probe specifically for that purpose, to make sure you can test the end face, make sure it's clean and undamaged very important you also said that you can use it to demonstrate using a VFL for like macro bands and stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:00

How, how would this thing show me a macro band?

Speaker 2: 13:03

so we have our trusty, dusty VFL and you connect one end of the cable into the VFL, the other one into the fiber link in and then you'll see it here. So now what we're going to do is we're going to remove this cable from fiber link out and then we're going to just plug it straight into fiber link in again. Just kidding always clean, always, always, always clean, no matter what happens, no matter how clean you think everything is, clean it again when they're clean it. No reuse of the swabs, fresh cleaning cloth. Now we plug it in fiber link in and again we do our cleaning clean this other end, take the dust holder off, clean cloth and we get our another swab clean again. Click it in, turn it on and you can see here.

Speaker 2: 14:30

I don't know if you can see it, but it shows what it looks like. On a macro bend you can see the light comes through the jacketing, which means that's bad, losing light. And where there's damage, again bad, you're losing light. If you really can't see it, you want it to flash to make sure it's more visible. Now you can see it flashing. It's flashing here at the macro bend and it's flashing at the damage. Now you're learning multiple things with this. You're learning what is a macro bend, why is it bad, what happens when you damage the fiber, and you're learning how to use the very simple tool, the VFL, and you're basically understanding the concept of light loss. The basic idea is you have fiber optic cable, just a thread of glass that you send light down. All of the data is in the light. If you lose light, you lose data. Simple as that.

Speaker 1: 15:24

I also saw in the description that you can use this to demonstrate fusion splicing. So you got a kilometer fiber underneath the foam there and then you got those two spools.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Under here. Yes, that is to do that. That's for our OTDR test, as you do that. But if you want to do the splicing, we don't have our splicer here, right the second, and I'm probably the wrong guy to demonstrate the splicing anyway. But you just take these two fibers and splice them together.

Speaker 1: 15:53

So I understand it. So the kilometer fiber is not connected to those spools or those spools connected to each other.

Speaker 2: 16:01

That's correct. This is 15 meters and 15 meters and you connect them up and then you can test from here and here and make sure that they're good. So you send light in here and then you test it out here. So you put the VFL in here.

Speaker 1: 16:12

So what you would do is you would splice it there between the spools and then you got the ports in the front of it that you connected, correct.

Speaker 2: 16:19

And actually one time I was at a JTC where I will not name significantly further east than California, and I told them that I was just going to put these things together and tape them together and then it would work. And they all started looking around for tape and then I said, no, you can't do that, you got to fuse it. It's glass, you got to fuse it. So it is a little bit more involved. But for those people that are watching that have done copper forever or that have been doing power or electricity or they're just getting into this industry, it's not that intimidating Once, obviously, practice, practice, practice, practice and clean, clean, clean, clean. But once you get it done, the modern fusion splicers are so good at making this difficult task easy.

Speaker 1: 17:08

They're amazing, absolutely amazing. So if I'm in a classroom environment I'm teaching I don't know 30 people a class and I'm teaching a couple of classes a week and 50 weeks out of the year I would chew up those two drums of fiber. So do you sell replacement drums for them, or would I just grab some?

Speaker 2: 17:28

Yes, sir, yes sir. So you have two screws here. You remove the two screws and we can give you another coil of wire. So you just take this part off, another coil of wire and then you put it right back on. And if you're very fancy which? We're selling these things to trainers. So trainers better know how to splice. Once you get low you can buy a whole bunch more cable, fiber cable, and splice on here Better be a real good splice so it doesn't mess up your testing. But you do a nice good splice and then you wind it around the reel. So it can definitely be done easy peasy if you're willing to do the job.

Speaker 1: 18:06

So what you would do is you would splice it there between the spools and then you got the ports in the front of it that you connect into it.

Speaker 2: 18:13

Yes, so I'll show you Again. You probably don't need to see all the different configurations. You don't want to watch me cleaning 14 different ports. But essentially what you can do turn this thing on is we have our cute little OPM, so you have your VFL, you have your essentially flashlight, you put it in here, you connect, so there's fiberlink in that you put your light into. There's fiberlink out, that you connect to your optical power meter OPM and then it will measure if it actually receives light into the input port. And if it receives light, everything's good. If it doesn't, it's not good.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Once you see that it's not good which it wouldn't be because between here and here is one kilometer of cable, of fiber, and at 500 meters that cable is damaged. So then you would use an OTDR. You connect the OTDR, you run a very simple test, you just push auto and then it will show you that at 500 meters it fails. There's a failure. And again, in this environment it's probably not the best for me to demo it, but we have tons of videos that you can watch it happen and if you want, we can, always we can work out a demo or a training.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Yeah, you got. I did notice that because in research for this show, after I started saw the article in cable installation of mains magazine, I immediately went to YouTube and typed it in and you guys do have a good amount of videos on this tool that I really, really like. So if I'm looking to set up a fiber lab, is this you said it's been out for like a month right?

Speaker 2: 19:59

Yep, yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Is it? Would I go through distribution to buy this, like Graybar, anxtr or something, or how would I purchase one of these?

Speaker 2: 20:07

So, because it's so new right now, we're just kind of working with the existing partners that we've been working with over the last several months and the vast majority of those are through the IBW and the ETA, the electrical training alliance. So we've been working with them a lot. In the next couple of weeks probably week or so we're going to get this into distribution and it'll be available to everyone and also, you know, depending on the size of the trainer you know, we could create a direct relationship, like somebody huge. If you do tons of training across the country, it might not make sense to force you to go through distribution. If you just have one school or one class and you just want to go easily get it, then it will be in distribution soon, soon, not today, but soon.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Right, right, how much is the fiber trainer?

Speaker 2: 20:56

So, if you're so, the distribution price is not 100% set and I don't ever like quoting what distributors are going to charge, but it should be under $1,000. Should be under $1,000 through distribution and user price.

Speaker 1: 21:11

That's a lot of functionality for that price point. Yes, as an instructor, because you just that's six things that I can teach in one small little case. That's going to make my job easier. I think that's a good price point for that.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Well, here's something I can tell you. So one of the reasons that we started doing this in the first place is, you know, we were trying to sell our tools. Obviously, we were selling OTDRs and BOPiMS and splicers and we would go to places where they use them and we would see the kind of things that people were putting together in order to demonstrate and it would be, you know, a milk crate with, you know, tons of cable coming out of it and fiber cable, and it would be multiple splices and multiple connectors and each connector was a little bit different and they would write down what the values are so that next time, if they do it, they want to make sure that the value is relatively similar. And we would say, well, if you want to show this, if you want multiple people to do this, how do you know that it's right? And they would say, well, we just figured out, we kind of wing it.

Speaker 2: 22:10

So at that point we thought you know, you need something that is going to be consistent, and it's not just going to be consistent for this class, for this trainer, but across class, across trainers, across students. And we're not actually charging a ton of money for this thing, because each individual component here, if you buy it through distribution is very expensive. So if you try to colluge this thing together, I would challenge anybody to build it for less than what we have it here for.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Even if even in a milk crate.

Speaker 1: 22:44

Is it just the case that it's in? That looks like a Pelican case.

Speaker 2: 22:49

It's not Pelican. It's a company in Canada called Nanook that we're working with.

Speaker 1: 22:56

But they'll tell you that it's just as good if not better. Yeah, they're not cheap by themselves. So let's say, for example, let's say I want to develop a fiber training course, maybe a couple, two, three hour training course, as I go around the country and stuff, teach and stuff. So I'm going to need the fiber trainer, the OTDR. And, by the way, these are all Tempo products, right?

Speaker 2: 23:21

These are all Tempo products. Yes, every one of these things that we're talking about as Tempo. As much as I want you to only use my tools if you already have an OTDR, that will certainly continue to work. You need an OPM, you need an SLS. If you have those things, please continue to use them. You need a VFL and you need a Splicer, and you should also have a fiber inspection probe. So those are the tools you should have.

Speaker 1: 23:44

If I'm starting from scratch.

Speaker 3: 23:46

Yeah, I understand.

Speaker 1: 23:47

If I've got a Fusion Splicer, I don't need to buy that.

Speaker 1: 23:49

But if I'm starting from scratch like I would right now. I mean, the only thing I really have, I've got a cleaver, a precision cleaver, but that's the only thing I have. So if I want to start teaching a fiber class, I've got to ouch, just crack my elbow. If I got to buy the fiber trainer, a Fusion Splicer, the optical loss test set, the VFL what am I talking about? Four grand, five grand Again, ballpark, because I know if I go through distribution they're going to do their markup and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 2: 24:25

Yeah, for all of this. So we have a kit that we put together for the ETA, for the Electrical Training Alliance, and that kind of includes everything that you would need to do a full course. And again, I don't like to quote on customer pricing, just because distributors have their own thing that they like to do, but I think we would look at a retail, like you said, something in the $3,000 to $4,000 range.

Speaker 1: 24:51

That's not bad. That's not bad at all, man, that's really not bad. So you already mentioned one of the resources, the YouTube channel, and if anybody watching this video or listening to us on the podcast, I highly suggest you go to the Tempo channel and watch their videos, their really good videos. What other resources are there? If somebody's looking at the settings up, how are they going to be able to determine what they need stuff? Can they call you or is there a team?

Speaker 2: 25:20

There's a team, so we have Tempo University. I'm wearing the shirt to demonstrate here, so we have a space here in the building where we do training. It used to be called Tool School, now it's called Tempo University, so we do train the trainers, train the trainer trainings. So anyone who wants to learn how to do this can come in here and do it and we show obviously everything on the in the training. We have all the tools. We use all the tools that we would suggest that you use. We have a curriculum that we have put together and we allow people to use for free. That gives you actually 14 hours of Bixie continuing education credits that we can teach to as well, and then we also go around the country and do some trainings. Lately we've been working primarily with JTCs through the IBW, but for any sizeable group we would be perfectly willing to come in. And again, we're focused on training trainers. We're not focused on training end users, right?

Speaker 1: 26:19

So Right Now. That makes perfect sense. Now, these classes are they listed on the website somewhere so I can say, hey, I want to see one's the next one in Baltimore, maryland or near that vicinity, or is that something I'd have to reach out to Tempo?

Speaker 2: 26:34

So we have a section. All of this stuff is relatively new. This sweatshirt, as a matter of fact, is only a week and a half old, so we're putting all of that together. But we have a section of the website focused on education. It will be. It'll talk all about all of our Tempo University classes, everything that we're planning. We're going to have two classes this year here in Vista, california. We have five classes that we are working with the IBW to put together through August and there'll probably be another five or so classes through the end of the year as well.

Speaker 2: 27:10

Oh, very nice. So you can look at the website or you can reach out to marketing at templecomcom, or you can reach out to me, oligfischeltempocomcom. And, like I said, we have a training team that do all of this work. It's not me. You do not want me training on anything. So we have two full-time field support engineers that do the training, and then I have a product manager that does training as well. So we have plenty of support right now and we would love it if you made us so busy. We would need to bring in more resources.

Speaker 1: 27:49

I can't guarantee I'll make you internet famous, because I got to say this olig, don't take this personally. You are not as fascinating as Tempo Bob.

Speaker 2: 28:02

I mean you're not?

Speaker 1: 28:05

Are you sure you don't know who Tempo Bob is? Because I'm telling you right now you and Tempo Bob have never been seen in the same room together, so I'm starting to put two and two together. I'm a pretty smart fellow and I'm telling you.

Speaker 2: 28:19

Far be it for me to question your intelligence. And you're right, tempo Bob and I would never have been in a room together because, if I'm perfectly frank, I don't find it all that entertaining little bit distasteful, if I'm totally honest. So I've tried to keep a distance, I tried to get it out of my consciousness, but I guess you remember it well, so it must have done something. So I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Speaker 1: 28:48

You saw the video Tempo Bob. Fans are looking for Tempo Bob.

Speaker 2: 28:54

So, yeah, I would hope that they find entertainment elsewhere, because I don't know anything about Tempo Bob or where we would even look for Tempo Bob if I were to want to look for him, which, if I'm perfectly frank, again, I don't believe you.

Speaker 1: 29:08

I don't, I don't believe you. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I know who Tempo Bob is.

Speaker 2: 29:18

I wish I could bring Tempo Bob in the bill. Like I said, I don't have a relationship with the guy. I don't know anything about him. I mean I don't even know if he's in the country you know. I mean it could be anywhere. Okay, what's going on here? I got podcasts. Nice to see you, boss, man Been a while. Hey, everybody in podcasts, remember knowledge has power. See myth busted.

Speaker 1: 29:48

This is the kind of stuff that you find on this in this journalism show called let's Talk Cabling. Until next time, everybody. Knowledge is power.

Speaker 3: 29:58

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.