Moto Sponsored Training...

Is the Moto sponsored training worth while? Has anyone here attended these classes? I would love to hear some of your insights.

i guess there is for every region. but it cost a lot of dollars.

I wouldn’t bother… I think you will learn more and quicker if you play with the kit and just ask questions in the forum…

our marketing and sales guys went to the confernce… and they claim they knew more then the Canopy technicians there…

first hand experience with the midnight oil buring and pulling out your hair… the best training…

start playing it with the manual.

500-1800$ for a 2-3day training is not a good idea.

better invest that to a pair of AP and SM and make it roll.

Thanks for the responses :slight_smile:

Has anyone else actually attended these classes? Canopy, RF, and IP addressing are VERY new to me, and although I’ve read most of the manual and played around with some of the equipment on my own, I’m wondering if these classes will touch on things that are not in the user guide.

trust me save your money… buy the kit and ask questions on the forum… guys on the forum are probably alot more experienced and knowledged then
the trainers…


if everything is totally new to you then chances are that alot of it will go over your head…

vj is really right… if you wanna start with the very basic… just buy a pair of SM and AP of your desired band. 900/2400/5700 then do the experiment.

I started it that way… and mastered it myself by reading the users manual, and this forum is my partner.

After two years of working with Canopy, I have to say that I would likely have benefitted from training as it would have put me further along the curve faster. I am pretty confident that my network could benefit from tweaks that I don’t know about yet.

Having said that, I have been able to build a robust, fast, quality network that my customers love without training.

If I had it to do over, and I had the money (which I wouldn’t have if I started over :-)), I would do the training.

Depending on your on a persons basic understanding of RF and netoworking will dictate how much you will take in from a training session.

The problem is that they will tell you this is what you need to do, I have found that I really learned and understood canopy when it didn’t work and I had to experiment and look into it deeply.

Also if the trainers are anything like the guys that answer the moto helpdesk number then I don’t think it is worth the money.

I would say if you had the kit and played with it for about a week you will learn more then you will learn from the training.

I learned more about Canopy by talking to Orthogon engineers ( i know its been taken over) but talking to them I learned about the behaviour of RF and link budgets.

Then again personally I am not one for learning from lectures give me the kit and google any day :slight_smile:

I have attended the training - last year, April I think, in Denver. It wasn’t too bad - very basic. If you are VERY new to RF and networking then it would be okay. But you learn a lot from working with the gear. Like Jerry I have been working with Canopy for a long time - I remember the days when 5.7 was all they offered. haha

I definitely found the training to be way too basic, and yet at times they went into such detail about things that didn’t even matter. Oh well, it was a prepaid trip to Denver, couldn’t complain. :smiley:


Aaron

FWIW I am considering a part time training position with a Certified Training Partner. Assuming they get enough attendees, I will be in Seattle this coming training to observe the program and determine if it is a good fit.

I’ll let you know.

Being the trainer would be cool. Do you have to go by their course material? Or can you chose what to go over. There is a number of things I would have deleted from the course and a number I would have added.


Funny story - over a year after I attended the training I got a call from Motorola doing a survey and asking what I thought. And, of course, over a year later I really couldn’t remember details to questions she was asking. Plus my truck was stuck in 2 feet of snow and I wasn’t really paying attention to her. haha


Aaron

The MOTO training has matured immeasurably in the past year. I attended the training in Las Vegas about a year ago. I too thought it was much to basic. I voiced my thoughts at the end of the class and in writting. I was asked to attend about a year later and I was amazed at how far it had come. The advanced training now includes vlans and network management materials. I would heartily suggest the CTCA training that is sponsored by Motorola Canopy for all levels. There is something for everyone.

>>Also if the trainers are anything like the guys that answer the moto helpdesk number then I don’t think it is worth the money.

I’m glad somebody else said it. The 1 or 2 guys that are knowledgeable are surly, and the other guys just put you on hold and get an answer from the surly guys (which probably contributes to the surliness)

I frequently find that I know a lot more than the support tech…

too often I find they just read the user guide out to me… but when I ask them to actually explain and its practical use and meaning in a live environment they can’t answer…

i had a classic case of asking them that if you rate limit an SM to 256k and someone tries to push more then that data, does the SM hold the excess data in a buffer or drops it immediately… they told me it was impossible for it to get more then 256k because TCP tells the sender to send at 256k… in the end i gave up… as they had no concept of the way TCP works…

It sounds like you may have already known the answer to your own question… One thing you have to keep in mind is that each class has it’s own scope of information. They have several classes now with several levels of expertise. The current instructors absolutely do not simply read from the book! I continue to see the current classes as a value added component. (nobody could have been a more harsh critic than I was - trust me!).

vj:

I have a feeling you are speaking from training experiences outside the U.S., yes? The US training is vastly different from ‘outside’ the US. and we have no control over that…

Another question has to do with “who” gave the training…some people/ACSPs/Distributors hold training classes that are not the “Authorized Week of Canopy” training…that is, they will bring-in a Motorola Technical Person (MTP… :smiley: ) and have them present ‘on the cheap’…and sometimes they take their own distributor staff to teach the class…

These are not apples-to-apples comparisons with our:
- 2-screen presentation
- multiple qualified instructor participation
- color workbook delivery (not just color slides)
- new hands-on labs…

Our company re-created/rolled-out the advanced Canopy class that is now called CPT300…so if the “beginning” CPT200 (which is the first step into training) was too basic, we have an answer.

Also, for the person who took it in Denver last year, we didn’t have ‘advanced Canopy training’ at that time…so maybe the course ‘was’ too basic for your skill level…I know that we do not get that comment from our present “advanced” students - and we have over 80% of these advanced students asking us to create a 2nd day of “advanced” CPT300 training (I guess they liked it so much they want more…)

The good news is that our evaluation forms show that over 85% of all our students rate the class as Very Good or Excellent (nobody bats 1.000…not even when on steriods ( :lol: ) - so we know we can improve, but we have had a lot of very happy students.

I can ONLY speak for the U.S., “Authorized” "Week-of-Canopy training (found at the link below). I can’t speak for any other training…

YMMV…

Thanks!

OOPS!!! I mis-read vj’s remarks… :oops: I had heard some negative things about some “training folks” outside the US who “read from the manual” during the training…my mistake…

The folks at the 800# are not associated with training…

My apologies…as I rushed through the list my error-rate increased (my CRC circuit was burned out! :lol: )

“IF” you need training (only you can decide) I hope you give us a shot…lots of folks have liked it…but we still don’t bat 1.000… :smiley:

I’m the guy that attended the Denver training. And if the Advanced training is now “advanced”, I think I’ll send my installers to it. Worst case: they confirm what they think they already know. haha

Thanks.


Aaron

Wow, I didn’t realize my topic would spark this many posts. Thank you all for your input.

If I do go to the training it will be in September in Schaumburg, IL. If anyone has any specific info for what to expect in Schaumburg, please post here :smiley:

Thanks again!