At Teracom, we concentrate on one thing: telecommunications training for non‑engineers. This way, we can bring you the best!
Our Specialty
Our specialty is explaining telecom technologies to non‑engineers who need a comprehensive update and overview, as well as for newcomers who need to get up to speed quickly.
Since 1992, we've spent thousands of hours developing and refining extremely valuable telecommunications training, Voice over IP (VoIP) and SIP training, and IP telecom training courses containing knowledge that spans years of university education, hands-on engineering, consulting and interaction with the biggest companies in the business.
We've organized and distilled this knowledge into proven training courses that consistently draws rave reviews from people like you - needing to build a solid base of knowledge, understand the jargon and buzzwords, fill in the gaps and understand mainstream technologies and trends... and how it all fits together.
We'll start at the beginning, cut through the jargon, bust the buzzwords, sort out technologies and provide an understanding of mainstream trends and practical cost-effective solutions... without bogging down on technical details. more
GSA Contract - Best-of-Breed Quality
Since the beginning, our objective has been to be "best of breed", providing the best quality training of this type available... at a lower price point than competitors.
Our success in the drive for quality is proven by follow-on business: often, one person from a company attends a seminar, then others from the same company attend subsequent sessions. In a number of cases, one person has attended a public seminar, then their company has had us in for private onsite training of dozens or hundreds more of their personnel.
We are proud to have been awarded a United States Federal Supply Schedule GSA Contract number GS-02F-0053X, which means pre-approved quality and pricing.
Applying for this US Government supply contract and being evaluated for acceptance by the GSA was a two-year-long process with a 200-page offer, which included quality rating where we scored 97%!
Who Should Attend
Teracom's training is geared towards non‑engineers who work for:
• Organizations that buy telecom equipment and services, including banks, power companies, government and military... including the telecom department of Wells Fargo, Entergy, the Justice Department, the US Marines, Oneida Tableware, the SF Giants and Portland Trailblazers amongst many, many others
• Telecom network and service providers including telephone companies, fiber backbone companies, broadband (cable) companies, mobile companies, CLECs and aggregators and resellers,
• Telecom equipment manufacturers including manufacturers of CO equipment, switches and routers, fiber and wireless transmission systems, handsets and last-mile technologies,
... and individuals who would like to improve their skills for this kind of job.
"Non-engineering personnel" means professional personnel:
• whose primary functions include accounting, tax, finance, business development, planning, marketing, sales, operations, telecom help-desk support, telecom service ordering and auditing, and software development,
• who are required to deal with telecommunications network technologies in their job,
• who have not had formal training on the telecom network and its related technical jargon, acronyms, abbreviations and technologies.
• who experience frustration at not understanding all the technical terms and how everything fits together, has learned bits and pieces on the job, and is at risk of being inefficient or even making errors in their job because of it.
"Training for non‑engineers" means that the training is at the concept level, understanding the key ideas and mainstream practices, and not detailed design discussions.
For example, we discuss the ideas behind SIP, what it is and it works, but don't analyze SIP message packets.
An exception to "Non‑Engineers" audience is engineers who are not telecom engineers.
We have trained many software engineers and developers, who are tasked with developing provisioning, operations or billing systems for telecom services - but who have little or no knowledge of the "network", and will benefit from understanding the application for the software they are developing.
We also see mechanical, chemical and civil engineers who have ended up working for a telecom company and need to fill gaps and get up to speed on telecom and the network.
Our Instructors
Teracom's instructors are professionals with broad and deep knowledge of telecommunications, data communications and networking technologies and trends and many years' experience teaching seminars. Unlike some you will encounter elsewhere, Teracom instructors all have Engineering or equivalent university degrees and hands-on experience working with the technologies they're teaching. All of our instructors share another common trait: the ability to cut through the jargon and buzzwords to explain the key concepts and mainstream solutions in plain English, without bogging down on jargon... knowledge you can't get by reading trade magazines or talking to vendors.
Types of Training Available
You can benefit from this career- and productivity-enhancing telecommunications training through the delivery mechanism that suits you best:
• attending a public seminar,
• bringing our instructor to your company for private onsite team training,
• taking online courses, or registering for a TCO Certification Package, which is online courses from Teracom coupled with certification from the Telecommunications Certification Organization,
• using our printed textbooks and eBooks for self-study, ... or combinations thereof!
Instructor-led training is the best you can get, as it allows you to focus, to interact and ask questions.
Online courses are available anytime, anywhere, and the certification is concrete proof of knowledge acquisition.
Textbooks can be used on their own, and many people find the textbooks an invaluable companion to instructor-led and online.
Online courses and certification are included as a free bonus with instructor-led training.
Accreditation
Teracom Training Institute is accredited by the Telecommunications Certification Organization (TCO) as a Certified Training Partner, authorized to develop approved courses meeting the TCO curriculum, administer exams for and award TCO Certification to successful candidates.
Instructional Design - Instructor-Led Training
Teracom's instructor-led training is based on the seminar format, which means interaction between the instructor and students in a classroom-style course.
Participants are seated at tables with detailed seminar workbooks, while the instructor presents the course in conjunction with a projected presentation and diagrams drawn on an easel chart.
Students are encouraged to ask questions and to relate the course material to their work.
The seminar workbook is 8.5 by 11 inch bound, printed in color, with two-page spreads.
Each spread corresponds to one lesson. Detailed text notes corresponding to the words spoken by the instructor is on the left side of the spread, and a copy of the graphics displayed by the instructor are on the right side of the spread.
The detailed text frees the student from having to take extensive notes, and is a valuable reference after the course.
Many students specifically praise the quality of the course book on course evaluations.
Many of the free tutorials on this site are lessons taken from course books.
Instructional Design - Online Courses, Books
The instructional design, and the content, of all of Teracom's other training products is derived from the instructor-led training workbook.
The online courses and textbooks have largely the same lessons, with the same text and graphics, and grouped into similar chapters.
The Unlimited Plan is a key feature of online courses and certification packages.
With the Unlimited Plan, students have unlimited retakes of exams and courses, with no time limits.
This means two things: a) guaranteed to get your certification if you're willing to learn, and b) jump in and out of courses as you like, do them in any order, refresh you knowledge anytime.
Another key feature of Certification Packages is the personalized Letter of Reference, a Teracom exclusive.
The personalized Letter of Reference details the knowledge your certification covers and invites the reader to contact Teracom for more information on your qualifications... ideal to attach to your CV along with the PDF copy of your TCO Certificate.
How We Keep Our Training Up to Date
The short answer: by constantly teaching public and private seminars.
The world of telecommunications has two aspects: the fundamentals, which change slowly, and the technologies, which change at a more rapid pace.
The content, the selection of topics, their order, the timing and pacing of our training courses has been tuned and refined over the years, based on our knowledge of the industry, experience working in the telecom business, and feedback from customers.
The content is kept up to date based on questions and feedback from seminar participants, and based on the set of topics requested for private onsite courses.
We count all of the biggest telephone companies in North America amongst our customers, and the topics they request for training each year are a driver of course updates.
Our flagship instructor-led Course 101, which we think of as "core training", i.e. the knowledge set needed by anyone serious in the telecom business, underwent a major update for the 2020s, with broadband and the converged IP network in the front seat. It is updated approximately twice a year.
This helps ensure that our other training products: online courses and textbooks, which are for the most part derived from the instructor-led course, also stay up to date.
To get a better idea of the quality and technical level of our training
• Check out our free tutorials. Each tutorial corresponds to one page from the course materials, covering one key concept, and represents five to fifteen minutes of in-class discussion. Not only are the tutorials useful, they are actual pages from our course materials, to let you see for yourself the very high quality of our training. Video tutorials are actual segments from our now-retired DVD-video courses.
• Read these six reasons to take Teracom training
• Read reviews from seminar attendees
• Register for a public seminar, get a private onsite course, register for an online course or TCO certification package, and/or get a textbook.
You'll be glad you did!
