Business View Magazine - July 2023

217 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 7 The evolution of fiber optics growth Certification courses that FOA supports have evolved over the years from long-haul telecom to metropolitan communities around the globe. Around the time the FOA was formed, cable companies had become the leading provider of broadband services. While those companies like Comcast and AT&T are still major broadband providers, Verizon’s entry into the market around a decade later moved the focus to get fiber connections to individual homes. These interconnected applications through cellular and wireless companies were essentially created when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone in 2007, Hayes says. That has further evolved the industry toward needing warehouse-sized data centers filled with fiber to handle broadband demand and ever-expanding speed. The issue of broadband access remains a critical one for many rural areas of the country, but also to offer access to inner city residents who may otherwise have difficulty affording such service. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has set aside $43 billion in federal funding for broadband deployment, especially in rural and tribal areas. Educational partnerships formed globally to support industry growth FOA’s online educational tools are wildly popular among fiber optics professionals. It has published 12 textbooks in four languages, Hates says. He also indicated that there are an average of four-million-page downloads from the association’s website in the last few years. FOA is the standard bearer for industry training, developing partnerships, and authoring the ability for instructors, THE FI BER OPT ICS ASSOCIAT ION