Canada Market Access for Wireless Device

Telecommunication approval

The Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) is the government department responsible for regulating telecommunications equipment in Canada. The Radiocommunication Act and the Telecommunications Act give the Minister of Industry the authority to develop technical standards and to ensure that telecommunications equipment meets these standards.

The Radiocommunication Act and the Telecommunications Act requires manufacturers, importers, distributors, and vendors must ensure that radio and telecommunications equipment, whether locally manufactured or imported to Canada, is tested and certified or declared to comply with applicable domestic technical regulatory standards - the ISED technical standards and marking requirements. The equipment sold in the Canadian marketplace continues to meet those standards during the entire product life-cycle.

The Certification and Engineering Bureau (CEB) of the ISED provides:

• a certification service for radio equipment, and 

• a registration service for terminal equipment.

Testing of either radio or terminal equipment to establish compliance with the ISED standards is performed in private sector laboratories. These laboratories are required to be approved by the ISED.

Certification and Engineering Bureau of the ISED performs regular audits or market surveillance of wireless and wireline equipment offered for sale to verify that the equipment complies with ISED's technical standards and that it is properly certified and/or registered. 

Certified radiocommunications devices are listed in the Radio Equipment List (REL) and registered telecommunication apparatus are in the Telecommunications Apparatus Register (TAR).

The Telecommunications Act requires that all telecommunications apparatus (such as telephones, digital subscriber line equipment, and modems) that are subject to and meet the technical specifications or markings be registered in the Telecommunications Apparatus Register (TAR) managed by Industry Canada and after this apparatus can be legally distributed, leased, imported into and sold in Canada. 

Declaration of Conformity (DoC) is a conformity assessment scheme used for telecommunications terminal equipment (apparatus) that connect directly to the public switched telephone network. Regulation DC-01 “Procedure for Declaration of Conformity and Registration of Terminal Equipment” sets out the requirements for registering terminal products.

The Radiocommunication Act requires that all radiocommunication devices, whether locally manufactured or imported for use in Canada, are tested and certified to meet applicable technical standards. 

The technical standards for radio equipment are prescribed by the ISED to ensure various radio apparatus used by radio services such as broadcasting, cellular, Wi-Fi, air traffic control and Public Safety can operate with minimal impact on each other and with the best use of the spectrum. The standards also ensure the radio (wireless) apparatus meet the limits set forth by Health Canada on the exposure of radio frequencies, particularly concerning the limits for Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). 

The Canadian Equipment Certification Program ensures radio equipment used in Canada meets the requirements of the applicable standards for specific types of equipment.

Certification of a product requires various steps and documents which are detailed in Radio Standards Procedure RSP‑100 “Certification of Radio Apparatus”. The application can be submitted electronically using the Equipment Certification Services the Spectrum Management System website. Generally, applicants utilize the expertise of Testing Laboratories and Certification Bodies that are recognized by the ISED and listed on the ISED website to obtain certification with Canada. Testing laboratories test the products according to the required Canadian regulations for radio certification with the ISED. 

Type of radio equipment subject to the regulation could be found here. 

Radio equipment is categorized as:

• Category I radio and broadcasting equipment such as:

cordless phones

cellular phones and television broadcasting transmitters

digital scanner receivers

model aircraft remote control, FRS and GMRS devices

LAN devices

remote car garage door openers

wireless routers

Equipment must meet technical regulations and requires certification by the ISED or a Certification Body. All Category I equipment  in Canada must be labelled. “Certification” is the conformity assessment scheme used for Category I radio and broadcasting equipment. 

• Category II radio, broadcasting and interference-causing equipment such as:

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) receivers

television sets

fluorescent lights

electronic transformers or ballasts

alarm keypads

intelligent battery chargers

satellite TV receivers

VCR’s

DVD players

computers

or any equipment that generates and uses timing signals at a rate in excess of 10,000 pulses per second

Equipment must meet technical regulations but certification is not required. Category II equipment is exempt from certification and registration. The equipment shall also be properly labelled according to the applicable standards. “Supplier's Declaration of Conformity” (SDoC) is the conformity assessment scheme used for Category II radio and broadcasting equipment. 

Once a radio device has been approved for use in Canada, the ISED will provide the manufacturer with a certification/registration number. All radio devices approved for use in Canada will bear a label, either physical or electronic, noting ISED's certification/registration number.

Applicant for equipment certification must be registered at the ISED database and have a Company Number. All registered companies will have an unique identifier called Company Number (CN) for the ISED.

Labelling requirements established under Radio Standards Procedure RSP‑100 “Certification of Radio Apparatus” and DC-01 “Procedure for Declaration of Conformity and Registration of Terminal Equipment” and Notice 2014-DRS1003 for e-label.

Every unit of the certified product for marketing and use in Canada shall be identified as per these requirements:

• The Hardware Version Identification Number (HVIN) and the ISED certification number shall be permanently indicated on the exterior of the product or displayed electronically according to e‑labelling requirements:

- the HVIN and the ISED certification number are permitted to be placed on a label, which shall be permanently affixed to the product

- the ISED certification number shall be preceded by "IC:"

- the HVIN is permitted to be listed or placed with or without any prefix (HVIN:, Model#, M/N:, P/N:, etc.)

- the HVIN and ISED certification number are not required to be adjacent to each other

• The Product Marketing Name (PMN) must be displayed electronically (e‑labelling), or indicated on the exterior of the product or product packaging or product literature, which shall be available with the product or online.

• The PMN, HVIN and ISED certification/registration number are permitted to be etched, engraved, stamped, printed on the product, or permanently affixed to a permanently attached part of the product.

• The PMN, HVIN and ISED certification/registration number indicated/displayed (e‑labelling) on any product on the Canadian market must be listed in the REL/TAR.

• When the Firmware Version Identification Number (FVIN) is the only differentiation between different product versions (PMN and HVIN remain identical) listed in the REL/TAR within a family certification, the FVIN shall be displayed electronically or stored electronically and be easily retrievable.

• In all cases, the PMN, FVIN, HVIN and ISED certification/registration number text shall be clearly legible.

Note: In all cases, when the ISED certification/registration number and HVIN, and the PMN and FVIN, when applicable, are indicated or displayed on the product according to the above listed requirements, they are not required to be adjacent to each other.

The certification/registration number is made up of a Company Number (CN), assigned by CEB of the ISED, followed by the Unique Product Number (UPN) assigned by the applicant. The certification/registration number format is:

IC: XXXXXX-YYYYYYYYYYY

where:

• The letters "IC:" indicate that this is the ISED certification/registration number, but they are not part of the certification number. XXXXXX-YYYYYYYYYYY is the ISED certification/registration number.

• XXXXXX is the CN assigned by the ISED. Newly assigned CNs will be made up of five numeric characters (e.g. "20001") whereas existing CNs may consist of up to five numeric characters followed by an alphabetic character (e.g. "21A" or "15589J").

• YYYYYYYYYYY is the Unique Product Number (UPN) assigned by the applicant, made up of a maximum of 11 alphanumeric characters.

• The CN and UPN are limited to capital alphabetic characters (A‑Z) and numerals (0‑9) only. The use of punctuation marks or other symbols, including "wildcard" characters, is not permitted.

• The HVIN may contain punctuation marks or symbols but they shall not represent any indeterminate ("wildcard") characters.

If the dimensions of the product are extremely small or if it is not practical to place the label or marking on the product and electronic labelling has not been implemented, the label shall be, upon agreement with the ISED prior to certification application, placed in a prominent location in the user manual supplied with the product. The user manual may be in an electronic format and must be readily available (applicable to radio equipment).

Note: E-labelling requirements provided in Notice 2014-DRS1003 apply to all devices subject to certification or registration requirements and to applicable Interference-Causing Equipment Standards (ICES).

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