TUV Rheinland’s Indian labs receive TEC accreditation for telecom equipment testing

TUV Rheinland, a company specializing in technical services, said four of its product testing laboratories located in India have been designated as Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) by the Ministry of Communication’s Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) to conduct testing of telecom products under the Phase III and Phase IV Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment (MTCTE) Regulations.

These laboratories are located in Bangalore, Gurgaon, Visakhapatnam, and Pune.

The certification of newly added product categories will become mandatory from July 1, 2022.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in September 2021 notified telecom products that require mandatory certification and testing before being sold in the country.

From July 2022, products such as smartwatches, tracking devices, smart cameras, smart electricity meters, base tower stations (BTS), and others, can be imported, sold, or used only after getting certified from an accredited lab. These are covered under the Phase III of the MTCTE regime.

Phase IV covers optical fibre, point of sale (PoS) devices, routers, transmission equipment, satellite communications (satcom) equipment, LAN switches, and others. Their mandatory testing and certification will kick in from February 1, 2022.

“TUV Rheinland’s facilities are one of the first few laboratories designated by TEC in the areas of Electrical Safety, EMC, Wireless and Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) requirements,” said Arun Deshpande, Managing Director, TUV Rheinland India.

“With our global network of laboratories and capabilities to fulfill customer requirements as per various national and international standards, our experts can support on testing and certification as per globally harmonized processes and provide cost-effective solutions,” said Kalyan Varma, Director – Global Wireless Program, TUV Rheinland Group.