Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed all cellular and broadband operators, Original Equipment Manufactures (OEMs) and dealers of IT equipment to obtain type approval for PC Tablets within next two weeks from the authority.

PTA has included PC Tablets in the Type Approval list recently, and therefore from now onwards all tablets that are traded and marketed in the country will need approval of the authority.

The regulator observed that several manufacturers, importers and service providers are marketing and selling different models and brands of tablets having WiFi, HSPA, UMTA, GSM, EVDO, and WiMax technologies.

PTA will issue type approvals for importers, makers and marketers while maintaining full details and information about equipment and accessories supplies, its dealers and users.

Authority warned all importers, marketers and service providers for stern action against them in case of non-compliance of the issued directives under Type Approval Regulations 2004.

Generally, type approval is required before a product is allowed to be sold in a particular country. Further approval or no-objection certificates are is issued to users of the equipment by the authority.

Analysts said that regulator’s steps to register electronic devices are necessary to prevent act of crime and terrorism in future. This way, authority will record the serial numbers and other details of tablet devices to maintain a record of users’ and traders’ identities to trace them immediately in case of any incidents and complaints.

There is a system to maintain SIM and mobile handsets identities through users’ CNIC and IMEI numbers but tablet PC were not registered by the authority earlier, they added.

Experts said that this move may hike prices of tablets by a little, however, there won’t be any significant change in the prices.

Experts said that tablets are gaining popularity in the country despite of being high-end and costly products but the fees of regulator will never affect their sales owing to users’ affordability.

In March 2011, PTA issued a Type Approval List for telecom operators. The authority identified equipment of eight categories under its type approval with varied fees separated for imported and locally-manufactured telecom equipment.

The Daily Times-Pakistan
By Muhammad Yasir

KARACHI: Pakistan Tele-communication Authority (PTA) has decided to set up Wimax and its physical equipments testing and certification laboratories in order to ensure rapid proliferation of broadband services with maximum guarantee of quality, official sources said.

The authority has invited private IT and telecom firms to establish quality-testing labs that can test and certify performance and fitness of different foreign and locally made telecom and IT equipments in the network of Wimax broadband operators.

The aim of these labs is to increase the proliferation rate of broadband services in the country through facilitation to Wireless Local Loops (WLL) operators that intended to switch their telephony services to Internet broadband services in the designated geographical and operational regions.

The authority through these IT and telecom firms will assist interested wireless telephone operators to provide broadband services with proper interoperability standards as prescribed by Wimax Broadband Forum.

PTA allows WLL operators to switch their services from telephony to broadband while functioning on the spectrum awarded in the license or carrying out both telephony and broadband services as per terms and conditions of license. Besides, the WLL companies are also allowed to auction their license to interested party seeking to deploy broadband services in Pakistan. Pakistan has seven wireless telephone operators providing telephony services with different standards having subscribers base of 2.78 million.

These operators can alter their service provision from telephony to broadband through legal procedures provided that they get approval with proper certification of services and models of Consumer Premises Equipment (CPE), which must have conformity with broadband working group. PTA has asked all interested parties already performing testing and issuing certifications in advanced capacities to approach its Directorate Numbering and Type Approval by June 30, 2011 for further assistance and guidance of authority to set up labs in Pakistan.

The IT and telecom firms must be conducting various certifications including Radio Conformance Testing (RCT) Protocol Conformance Testing (PCT), Network Conformance Testing (NCT) Mobile Interoperability Testing (MIOT), Interoperability Testing (IOT), Infrastructure Interoperability Testing (IIOT), Radiated Performance Testing (RPT). This is one of the steps of authority in collaboration with broadband and WLL operators to enhance the subscribers’ base throughout the country, which is encouraging for speedy and standard Internet access to a large number of citizens.

Pakistan has nearly 0.35 million users of Wimax Internet services at present, which has a significant share in overall broadband users’ base. PTA has recently developed an application named “Pakistan Telecommunication Coverage Footprint” on its web-portal that gives the flexibility to view areas of coverage and service availability of GSM, DSL and EVDO service providers. It also conducts quality of service survey and ranks different operators in accordance with their service performance and coverage.

The InfoComm Development Authority (IDA) has announced some changes to its Equipment Registration Framework with effect from April 15, 2010. The changes will enhance the scope of equipment registration process from a limited set of short range/low power devices to also include additional categories of equipment. These include 5GHz WLAN devices, as well as some telecommunications equipment such as cordless telephones, PABX and ISDN equipment. IDA is also changing the evaluation process for 3G mobile phone devices.

The changes in framework may effect registration / approvals of equipments in Singapore. Please contact us for advice as to how these changes affect you and your products.

As of 1 January 2010, KCC certification will be required for import of radio and telecommunications products into Korea. Previously, KCC certification and its predecessor, the MIC certification, were required for sale of these products in Korea.

This represents more strict enforcement of the KCC certification in order to protect consumers from unapproved and poor quality products.

This change is being made through an amendment to Article 226 of the Customs Law, Notification for customs inspection items and inspection procedures. The amendment reads as follows:

“Devices subject to the Radio Act and Electrical Communications Basic Law will be asked to present a KCC certificate before passing through Customs.”