The Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFETEL) of Mexico has issued a new set of Conformity Assessment Procedures for telecommunications and radio broadcasting equipment.

This will impact all products, equipment, devices, apparatus, and infrastructure for telecommunications or broadcasting that can be connected to a network of telecommunications and/or make use of radio spectrum. The mandatory product scopes have been enlarged.

The certificate holder, or importer, has to apply for both CoC, which is issued by the certification bodies, and the IFT homologation certificate. These certificates will be non-transferable, meaning other local importers will need to apply to get their own CoC and IFT certificates.

Instead of going in person to file every application, e-filing will become available.

There will be four different certification schemes:

• Certification of single batch/lot
• Certification of single model of product, with surveillance
• Certification of family of products, with surveillance
• Certification of telecom or radio broadcasting product, with surveillance

Test reports issued by foreign testing labs will be accepted by the certification bodies per the current MRAs between governments.

Follow-up inspections will be selected at random for 5-15% of certificates that were issued and valid in the past year.

These new procedures will go into effect on February 25, 2021.

Any CoC issued prior to February 25, 2021 will remain valid, but will be subject to the provisions in the new regulation. The certificates cannot be updated after February 25, 2021. For example, a new HTS code could not be added; a new certificate would be needed.