ICASA certification for market approval in South Africa
A certification by the South African authority ICASA (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) provides access to the South African market for manufacturers of wireless technology products.
The test scope for the ICASA approval is related to the requirements for a CE marking on the basis of the Radio Equipment Directive and national specifications. Generally, in-country testing is not required for such a certification, but a local contact person needs to be involved in the approval process. A manufacturer should plan for the approval period ten to twelve weeks.
After the official certification of the device by the ICASA, the approval is permanently valid, so that without any change to the device other than cosmetic changes (e.g. a change in the color of the enclosure), no re-certification must be sought. In the case of any other changes to the device, no modular re-certification is possible. The process for an ICASA certification must be completely restarted.
The ICASA label
Due to the ICASA certification, the manufacturer is obliged to display the ICASA certification label visibly on the device together with the certification number. Here are minimum dimensions of the label of 3 mm x 3 mm prescribed by the authority. The ICASA certificate number has the following structure: TA XXXX-YYYY
While the TA stands for “Type Approval” and XXXX is intended for the certification year, the remaining four digits (YYYY) is a number explicitly assigned to the certified product by the authority. The ICASA label may be purchased from ICASA otherwise the manufacturer must request in writing permission to print the ICASA label according to the prescribed specification. The request must include a sample of the proposed label.
As part of our certification services, we coordinate the whole certification project with the local contact. Our experienced certification team carries out the complete project handling for you, thus ensuring an efficient approval process and fast approval in the South African market.
On our website you will find more information about our product testing and certification services. Further information on ICASA requirements and the ICASA certification label, as well as many other approval regimes can be found in our certification database CETECOM CERT.
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