CompTIA Network+ Readiness: The Networking Credential That Completes the Ladder
Signature Course No. 401 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
No experience needed — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's CompTIA Network+ Readiness: The Networking Credential That Completes the Ladder course, in the Personal Effectiveness & Well-Being category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
Readiness, honestly judged — never a guaranteed result. Network+ is the credential employers reach for when they need proof that a technician understands the whole network — not one vendor's console, not one corner of the estate, but the connected system: how it is addressed, switched, routed, cabled, broadcast, monitored, secured, and repaired. This course teaches that whole system at the depth the published N10-009 outline sets, and its capstones certify the narrower, more useful thing a course honestly can: that you have worked every domain of the outline on fresh problems, that your arithmetic recomputes, and that your judgment about whether you are ready rests on evidence rather than hope.
It starts with the layered models. Two models divide the work of networking into layers, and a fault has a layer: finding it halves your search. You will learn what each layer moves and what it answers for — bits, frames, packets, segments — so you can place any device, protocol, or fault at its layer and say what that placement tells you to check next, testing from a layer you can verify and moving only when the layer beneath is proven.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — The Exam-Depth Foundation — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Branch Plan; then, Module 2 — Operate, Secure, and Troubleshoot — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Monday Outage.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — a complete branch network plan for Velcrest Logistics' new depot: the layer map, the variable-length allocation of its single address block, the VLAN and trunk design, the route home, and the cable and wireless specification, written so an installer needs to ask nothing; and an incident diagnosis and remediation report for a multi-cause Monday outage at head office: scoped and clustered before anything is touched, proven layer by layer, repaired one change at a time, and closed with whole-system verification and preventive measures.
The honesty standard is part of the course. This is a readiness course, not a promise: no book, coach, or practice test can guarantee an examination you have not yet sat. The course is built to the published CompTIA Network+ outline, N10-009, as it stood at drafting; examination facts — the question count, the timing, the stated passing score — are the publisher's figures at drafting, flagged in the book to be re-checked against the current published outline before you rely on them. Address and subnet arithmetic is worked in the open from stipulated addresses, so every figure can be recomputed with a pencil — including, especially, your own.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
CompTIA Network+ Readiness: The Networking Credential That Completes the Ladder is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
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Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with the layered models. Take the last network fault you met and say, honestly, at which layer it lived — and how many layers above it you checked before you found it; when a colleague says the network is down, name the layer whose evidence you would ask for first, and what exactly you would accept as proof that layer is healthy; name one device in your own environment that works at more than one layer, and what each layer's part of its job looks like. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Branch Plan for Module 1 and The Monday Outage for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
Place it at its layer, compute it until it recomputes, run the method in order. Every skill in this course is the same discipline at a different depth: say where a thing lives on the map before you touch it, derive every figure from its stated facts so it can be checked, and work faults in the blueprint's order — identify, theorize, test, plan, implement, verify, document — rather than in the order panic suggests.
Module 1 builds the exam-depth foundation. The Layered Models; Subnetting and VLSM; IPv6 Addressing; Switching at Exam Depth; Routing, Decided; Ports, Protocols, and Transport; The Infrastructure Services; Cabling and the Physical Plant; and Wireless at Blueprint Depth — the connected system specified exactly: every layer named, every address computed, every standard stated.
Module 2 operates, secures, and troubleshoots it. WAN, Remote Access, and Cloud Networking; Network Operations; Availability and Resilience; Network Security Concepts; Secure Design; Hardening and Secure Management; The Troubleshooting Method; Troubleshooting in Practice; and Readiness, Judged Honestly — the credential earned in the running of the network, and above all in the fixing of it, in order.
And it holds its boundary throughout. How networks work at concept level, for the curious practitioner, is taught in its own neighboring course — No. 291, Networking Fundamentals: How Networks Actually Work — whose foundation this course assumes; the bench technician's broader syllabus and the security seat's view of networks live in theirs. This course is the whole network at exam depth, in the blueprint's own framing — specifications, port numbers, standards, and symptom patterns included.
What you will learn
- Use the layered models to place any device, protocol, or fault at its layer — and to say what that placement tells you to check next
- Compute IPv4 subnets and variable-length allocations from stated facts — network, broadcast, and usable range — and check any address plan by recomputation; read and build IPv6 addresses in their standard forms
- Design switched and routed networks at exam depth: virtual LANs and trunks, spanning tree behavior, static and dynamic routing, and how a router selects a path
- Name the transport behavior and well-known port of the standard services, and explain the infrastructure services — DNS, DHCP, and NTP — well enough to configure and to fault-find them
- Specify the physical and wireless plant correctly: cable categories and standards, fiber and connector types, wireless standards, channels, and security modes
- Operate and secure the network as the outline defines it: monitoring and documentation, availability design, threat recognition, firewalls and access lists, segmentation, hardening, and secure management
- Run the blueprint's troubleshooting method in order on an unlabeled fault — identify, theorize, test, plan, implement, verify, document — using the standard tools and recorded evidence, and judge your own examination readiness from evidence
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of CompTIA Network+ Readiness: The Networking Credential That Completes the Ladder, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Branch Plan and The Monday Outage
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the people the business calls when the fault is in the network
Working network and support technicians — preparing for Network+ and for the broader responsibility that comes with it, who need the full outline worked as practice rather than summarized as notes; and graduates of No. 291 or practitioners with equivalent field experience who already hold the working model of how networks function and now need exam depth: the standards, the numbers, and the method.
Systems and desktop staff moving toward network work — who configure machines daily and are becoming the person the business calls when the fault is in the network itself.
Small-team generalists — the one or two people a small firm relies on, who must address, segment, monitor, and repair a real estate and brief a provider in the provider's own terms. This course assumes 291-level foundations or equivalent experience, ordinary arithmetic, and a willingness to work problems in writing, pencil beside you; it does not assume examination craft — that is built here.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with The Layered Models
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
CompTIA Network+ Readiness: The Networking Credential That Completes the Ladder is Signature Course No. 401. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.