Greg,
I have to agree with you, in saying that the POTS system is pretty much a "sunset system".
I had mine taken out here at home in favour of a naked broad-band connection and while that is over copper, next year, I will have that upgraded to fibre, when I can afford that.
I did a training course some time ago on fibre work, probably 2 years ago, it is a LOT more involved than terminating cables into CAT5 or 6 with a punch-down tool.
Get your angle of cut wrong and you're screwed, these things are miniscule.
However, this is the way of the future, in years to come, we won't talk of copper conductors with respect to telecomms stuff and I think that is a great thing, it shows progression forwards.
It just means that the technicians that work with this sort of thing, need to be trained better.
