FBA's Deborah Kish on the economic, social and safety benefits of building fiber

NASHVILLE – Fiber Connect 2022 – Deborah Kish, vice president of research and workforce development at the Fiber Broadband Association, joined the Light Reading team at the Fiber Connect conference to discuss the organization's research on how deploying fiber impacts local economies, public safety outcomes and more.

She also shared updates about OpTIC: the Fiber Broadband Association's fiber optic technician program launched in March, which held a training on site at Fiber Connect this week. "We have a lot of people who have been in this industry for 40-plus years," said Kish. "There's a lot of people on the path for retirement. I think they'd make great instructors, which is good. Now we need to backfill and keep that pipeline going. So that's what the course is actually designed to do."

Here are a few topics discussed in this video:

• Background on the Fiber Broadband Association's research efforts (02:30)
• Public safety benefits of fiber deployment (04:30)
• FBA's survey on how service providers are using design engineering software (06:10)
• Details on OpTIC: FBA's optical telecom installation certification program (07:30)

Related stories and links:

• Four forces driving 1-Gig as 'new global standard' – report
• The Divide: FBA's Gary Bolton on taking fiber advocacy to the states
• ISPs suffer losses and make plans in face of climate crisis
• Fiber Broadband Association launches Optical Telecom Installation Certification program (press release)
• Fiber Broadband Association's OpTIC Path program expands (press release)
• About FBA OpTIC

— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading; and Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Broadband World News