The association of web technology with instrument automation and control has made possible the development of the so called Remote Laboratories or WebLabs — distributed environments that allow to access and control experiments remotely through the Internet — extending the interactivity in virtual learning environments to higher levels. In this work we describe the main characteristics of a WebLab developed for the remote measurement of an optical fiber's attenuation coefficient, which is part of an ongoing project whose goal is to implement a photonics remote laboratory aimed to support activities in face-to-face and online courses on optical communications. Preliminary tests on the overall performance of the system have shown very promising results, strongly indicating its potential as a sound and reliable tool for photonics education.