R&TTE Directive

The Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment Directive, known as the R&TTE directive or RTTE for short, is the main route to compliance for Radio and Telecoms equipment that is sold in Europe.

The directive came into force April 2000, replacing the Telecommunications Terminal Directive for Telecoms equipment and mainly National Standards for Radio Transmitters.

This directive is a move towards Self Certification and shifts the emphasis from regulation to surveillance. This enables you to get a product to market much quicker but if it doesn't meet requirements you are much more likely to be found out and forced to withdraw the product. The Essential Requirements for a product cover Health and Safety, EMC, Use of the Radio Spectrum and Specific Requirements for certain classes of equipment. The only equipment types currently that have specific requirements are Marine Radios, Avalanche Beacons and Radios for use on Inland Waterways.

The directive offers four ways of demonstrating requirements, partially at the choice of the manufacturer, and these are given in annexes II, III, IV and V. The main part of demonstrating compliance is compiling a Technical Construction File or TCF (annex II calls this Technical Documentation). The file needs to contain sufficient information to identify the product and show that it is compliant with the essential requirements.

Annex II is aimed at Telecommunications Terminal Equipment and radio terminals where the Harmonised Standards contain test suites. This is the simplest way to demonstrate compliance but carries the highest level of risk. Compliance is demonstrated by the TCF. The manufacturer must also operate a quality control system to ensure that the product will continue to meet the requirements. Unlike it's predecessor, the TTE Directive, there is no formal audit of the manufacturing facility and many companies ignore this requirement. This is foolish, however, because if the product is not consistent it will differ from that described in the TCF and effectively invalidate compliance.

Annex III is aimed at Radio Equipment where the Test Suites needs to be identified by a Notified Body. The requirements of Annex II still apply but the demonstration of compliance given in the TCF is by passing the identified tests. Annex III is usually used in conjunction with Annex IV.

Annex IV has the same requirements as Annex II but the TCF is submitted to a Notified Body and they issue an Opinion (in the strict terms of the annex they only need to issue a negative opinion but most notified bodies will also issue positive opinions where appropriate). This 'Opinion' is the closest thing to an approval under the directive and some Notified Bodies will issue a positive opinion as a certificate that can be included in the TCF.

Annex V, known as Full Quality Assurance, provides an alternative that is attractive to companies who introduce a number of new products each year. Development and manufacturing facilities are audited by the Notified Body then the company can release as many new products as it wants without having to submit documentation to the Notified Body but with their full backing.

If compliance is demonstrated using Annex II the equipment should carry the CE mark (providing, of course, it meets the requirements of any other applicable directives). But if the services of a Notified Body are used (annexes III, IV and V) the CE mark is followed by the number of the Notified Body.

Where Radio Equipment uses frequency bands who's use is not fully harmonised across Europe the Manufacturer or Supplier must notify the Spectrum Usage Authority (Article 6.4) in each member state where the equipment will be sold.

For more information visit the Official EU R&TTE web pages -
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/rtte/index_en.htm

Links to other useful sites

OFCOM (UK Regulator) guidance to manufacturers -
www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/ra/topics/conformity/conform-index.htm

BSI-Global (British Standards Institute) CE Mark Guidance -
www.bsi-global.com/CEMark/RadioTelecoms/index.xalter

The Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment Compliance Association (R&TTE CA) -
www.rtteca.com

Help site provided by RTTE Services - this is a very useful reference site -
www.rtte.org

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