New Conformity Assessment Framework for Radio Equipment
Recently, South Africa published draft Conformity Assessment Framework for Equipment Authorization, which simplifies and harmonizes existing approval procedures for radio products.
The draft regulation published by ICASA (“Independent Communications Authority of South Africa”) applies to any type of electronic communications equipment or electronic communications facility, including radio apparatus, used or to be used in connection with the provision of electronic communications. It describes a new conformity assessment approach which is based on 3 classification levels.
The levels depend on the classification of products as low, medium and high-risk equipment. Low-risk equipment is exempted from equipment authorization.
ICASA will publish and update the classification of equipment to the public as and when required. It also reserves the right to re-classify equipment.
The reason for the publication of the Conformity Assessment Framework is that the existing Type Approval process was considered not robust as it does not categorize equipment neither does it have in place risk profiles for different products to develop and implement different mechanisms of conformity assessment.