Fibre, Cisco and the field

The physical side of networking: splicing and testing fibre at Telecom Egypt, a visit to a live base-station site, and configuring real Cisco routers and switches at Systel Telecom.

Telecom Egypt (WE) · Training Sector, Nasr City · Jul – Aug 2024

Fibre optics

The full fibre maintenance cycle: stripping, cleaving, fusion splicing and heat-shrink protection, with a measured splice loss of 0.00 dB.
The EXFO MAX-730B platform (OTDR, power meter, light source and visual fault locator) for link-loss measurement and fault localisation.
ODF termination, plus GSM-to-LTE evolution and IMS.

EXFO fusion splicer screen after a splice, reading Loss 0.00 dB — The splicer after a splice: loss 0.00 dB.

EXFO MaxTester handheld test platform used for OTDR traces — The EXFO MaxTester, used for OTDR traces and loss measurement.

Telecom Egypt · site visit · 2024

A live base-station site

Part of the same training: up close with the antennas on the tower and the equipment cabinet below it, down to its backup batteries.

Looking straight up a lattice telecom tower at its antennas and cabling — Antennas and cabling on the tower.

Base-station equipment cabinet with power distribution, cabling and sealed backup batteries — The equipment cabinet, with its sealed backup batteries at the bottom.

Systel Telecom · Smart Village, Giza · Aug – Sep 2023

Cisco routing & switching

Configured Cisco routers and switches over the IOS CLI: VLAN segmentation, static routing, OSPF and Spanning Tree. First in Packet Tracer, then on production-grade Systel hardware.
IPv4 subnetting (VLSM and CIDR), ARP and TCP/UDP fundamentals, plus web-security basics (XSS and SQL injection) in lab exercises.

Lab rack with a 24-port Cisco switch above three Cisco routers — The lab rack: a 24-port switch above three Cisco routers.

Packet Tracer topology: an ISR4331 router connected to a 2960 switch with four PCs — The same ideas in Packet Tracer first: an ISR4331 router and a 2960 switch.