JONES COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) - Jones College is now training to offer a class on fiber optics.

The class will focus on fiber layout, installation and maintaining fiber optic networks. The overall goal of the course is to provide a new skill set for students to go out and make a family-sustaining wage. raw material

Jones College preparing to offer fiber optics class

Webb Evans is the dean of the Advanced Technology Center at Jones College. He said they’re always looking for more ways to offer students a good career path.

“We’re always looking for career paths that have a great family-sustaining wage, and students that come out of this course who complete it successfully can expect to make anywhere from twenty to twenty-seven dollars an hour to start,” said Evans.

Joe Cairone is the fiber school instructor. He said the class will provide background knowledge, a new skill and hands-on training.

“We’re going to teach them how to use a power meter and light source and how to troubleshoot using that,” said Cairone. “We do an overview of an OTDR, which is an optical time domain reflectometer. It’s used to basically give you the health of what the fiber network is going to be when you’re testing it.”

Seth Pierce is an electrical technology instructor for the college and said this is a way to keep graduates in Mississippi; emphasizing how the class will provide jobs for students right here in the community.

“Somebody could come and take this 40-hour class and then go straight into the workforce and being able to benefit local communities as far as the EPA’s, putting in the fiber, local contractors who may be dealing with the fiber that’s working for the EPA’s right now, the subcontractors and stuff like that,” said Pierce.

The school is currently teaching professors to teach the class to Jones College students in the summer.

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