The Electronics Technicians Association—ETA International—recently announced it has established the Termination and Testing Technician certification for cabling professionals. The association’s president Teresa Maher said, “ETA International intends to lead the industry in providing certification for Termination and Testing Technicians to insure they have the knowledge and hands-on skills required to provide a system that will pass appropriate tests and is properly terminated.” The association added, “Since 80 percent of installation failures are related to poor connectorization techniques, ETA requires a hands-on skills test in addition to the knowledge portion of the test to validate the technician has acquired proper testing and termination techniques.”
The ETA said that as manufacturers develop Internet Protocol (IP) products to meet customer demand for faster speeds and increased bandwidth, skilled technicians are needed to test and terminate fiber-optic, copper and coaxial cabling. Termination and Testing Technicians (TTTs) “terminate, connect, test and troubleshoot IP-enabled voice/data/video cable and devices to each other using connectors, tools and techniques specific to fiber-optic, copper pairs, and coaxial cabling,” the association noted. “One of the primary principles of the network cabling standards is that if a cable is properly terminated and tests satisfactorily, that cable can be used to connect any proper device from any manufacturer. There are hundreds of vendors making thousands of different IP network devices, any and all of which can be readily connected to a network if the cable to be used is properly terminated and tested.”
Maher added, “This certification emphasizes ETA’s dedication to being vendor-neutral and applying industry standards for terminations, tests and cable performance across the board to all manufacturers’ products.”
The competency requirements for the TTT certification emphasize the use of cabling systems in IP security applications. Of the 13 general competency categories, the following 6 directly relate to IP security.
- Physical Security Systems Network Cabling Fundamentals
- General Fiber Optics Cabling for Physical Security Systems
- CCTV Fiber Transceiver Specifications
- General Copper Network Cabling for Physical Security Systems
- Using Power over Ethernet with Physical Security Devices
- Ethernet Coax Cables for Physical Security Systems/Devices
The other competency categories are:
- Technician Fiber Optic Safety
- Fiber Optic Connectors
- Fiber Optics Hands-On Skills Exercises
- Unshielded Twisted Pair Cabling
- UTP Connectors
- Copper Testers and Troubleshooting
- UTP Cat 5e Hands-On Skills Exercises
You can view and download the competency requirements for the TTT certification here.