The Background:  Arising from the Telecommunications Act 1997, the ACMA administered a Certification Body Scheme.  Our company, Approval Specialists Pty. Limited, was a Certification Body under the scheme, however over the many years that we were a Certification Body (not to be confused with the global IECEE CB Product Safety Scheme), we only issued a handful of certifications.  The reason….they’re not required.  Provided an accredited report for a high risk standard is obtained from one of the many accredited labs (including our Austest Laboratories), a Certification Body Certificate was (and still is) simply not necessary.   Why did we maintain our Certification Body listing if we never issued Certification Body Certificates ?  Simply because the ACMA didn’t charge a fee to be a Certification Body.

What Changed ? The ACMA decided they no longer wanted to administer the Certification Body Scheme and handed it over to JAS-ANZ.  As the new approving body, JAS-ANZ charges large initial and renewal fees to become a Certification Body.  Given Certification Body Certificates are simply not needed due to ample accredited labs providing endorsed reports to high risk standards such as AS/CA S042.1 for mobile phones, it’s hardly surprising that 3 out of the 4 previous Certification Bodies didn’t bother applying to JAS-ANZ….there’s simply no money in it and no way to recoup JAS-ANZ’s high fees.

In Summary…Today:  A Certification Body Statement for a telecommunications product is not required where an importer or manufacturer obtains accredited reports to the relevant AS/CA standards. Austest Laboratories provides accredited reports to ALL high risk standards listed in the Telecommunications (Labelling Notice for Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Instrument  including those for mobile phones. Further, the cost for an accredited report can be less than a Certification Body Statement.

Austest Laboratories is accredited to 31 pages worth of standards and our Telecommunications Standards listing can be found on page 5.  Contact us for a quote.