The European Union’s (EU’s) Radio Equipment Directive (RED) is likely to present market access challenges for manufacturers and distributors of wireless communications products.
According to a recent posting on the website of LANCOM Systems, a German manufacturer of routers and wireless local area network devices, the RED requires that all devices with wireless interfaces fully comply with the essential requirements of the Directive by not later than June 13 of this year. However, the harmonized standards required to provide the technical specifications necessary to meet these essential requirements are still under development and are not expected to be available in advance of the transition cut-off date.
The company notes that the situation is further complicated by the fact that the provisions of the RED apply even to those Wi-Fi products that have already been tested and found compliant under the EU’s R&TTE Directive, which the RED replaces. If left unchanged, this could potentially result in the inability to legally sell any Wi-Fi products throughout the EU, according to the LANCOM Systems posting.
To address these concerns, the company is calling on the EU Commission to extend the final transition period of the RED until at least 2018.
Read the LANCOM Systems posting on the RED and its impact on the Wi-Fi market.
Thank you for this interesting article. You’re right, the delivery time, to get these new published standard, risks to exceed the June 13th 2017.
Nevertheless, it is mandatory to anticipate the new validation tests before this date for equipment under the RED. So the only advice is to test in advance the products based on the standard drafts because we have no choice to comply with the RED from June 13th 2017. It is necessary to take into account the new versions and tests of the standard drafts.
Franck Deschamps
Subject Matter Analyst
International Product Compliance