R&TTE Directive - Frequently Asked Questions

The following are a series of the most frequently asked questions in relation to the R&TTE Directive, the answers are only a paraphrase of the requirements. Please either review the web site of the European Commission for more complete information, or for specific advice in relation to your products please contact us directly.

NB: There has been a public consultation on the impact of options under consideration for the revision of the R&TTE Directive, the results of the consultation can be viewed here.

Q1. What is the R&TTE Directive?

Answer: Directive 1999/5/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 1999 on radio equipment and telecommunications equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity, better known as the R&TTE Directive. It was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 7 April 1999.

The R&TTE Directive covers all radio equipment and all equipment intended to be connected to public telecommunications networks. It establishes a regulatory framework for the placing on the market, free movement and putting into service.

The Directive includes provisions for:

Marketing of equipment: Equipment may be placed on the market if it meets essential requirements. ETSI has the remit for developing Harmonized Standards which allow a manufacturer to declare compliance. If equipment meets a Harmonized Standard, Member States are required to presume compliance and allow the product to be marketed without further restriction.

Information on the use of radio frequencies: Radio frequencies are managed on a national basis. Equipment which uses harmonized frequencies may be used without restriction - in other cases national restrictions may apply. When national restrictions do apply, manufacturers are required to indicate this to their customer and inform the relevant Member State four weeks before placing the equipment on the market. Various bodies including Governments, industry and standards bodies contribute to the process for harmonizing radio frequency use.

Telecommunications interfaces: Network operators are required to declare interfaces in sufficient detail to allow manufacturers to build terminal equipment to use network services. ETS provides guidance on the declaration of interfaces to both Network Operators and Network Equipment Manufacturers.

Q2. How do I show conformity? What are Harmonized Standards?

Answer: Equipment which meets 'essential requirements' may be freely marketed in the European Union. Harmonized Standards provide technical requirements associated with the Essential Requirements of the Directive. The Directive requires member states to presume compliance with the Directive, and therefore to allow the marketing of the equipment without impediment, when Harmonized Standards are used.

To have this legal effect, the references of the Harmonized Standards are cited in the Official Journal of the European Union. The list of applicable standards is available from the website of the European Commission. ETSI standards can be downloaded free of charge from ETSI.

The Official Journal listing is arranged in five columns as shown in the fictitious example below. In this example, Member States are required to presume the conformity of radio equipment which meets EN XXX XXX with article 3.2. The equipment also has to meet essential requirements 3.1a) (safety) and 3.1b) (electromagnetic compatibility), and possibly article 3.3 requirements if they have been invoked (see Q4. Which essential requirements apply to my equipment?).

NB: Always check the Scope of the standard carefully to ensure that it covers your equipment, if in doubt seek professional advice.

Within ETSI, Harmonized Standards are produced by the technical committee responsible for the product, under the co-ordination of the R&TTE Steering Committee.

Q3. What are the Essential Requirements?

Answer: The R&TTE Directive requires equipment to meet certain essential requirements before it is placed on the market in the European Union (EU). Compliant equipment may be freely marketed anywhere in the EU (although there may be restrictions on the use of radio frequencies). The essential requirements are described in qualitative terms. Harmonized Standards define technical characteristics which can be used to demonstrate that equipment meets the essential requirements of the Directive and thus be marketed freely within the EU.

The essential requirements of the R&TTE Directive are:

• protection of health and safety of the user and any other person, based on the protection requirements of the Low Voltage Directive 73/23/EEC (article 3.1a of the R&TTE Directive)
  • Directive 73/23/EEC is currently under review
  • Harmonized Standards for Safety are developed by CENELEC, with assistance from ETSI
• the essential requirements of the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive 2004/108/EC (which supersedes the earlier EMC Directive 89/336/EEC) (article 3.1b)
• Harmonized EMC requirements are produced by ETSI and CENELEC under a work-repartition agreement. ETSI develops harmonized EMC standards for radio equipment; CENELEC for non-radio terminal equipment and IT equipment
• effective use of the radio spectrum/orbital resource so as to avoid harmful interference (article 3.2).

The European Commission may invoke certain other requirements for particular classes of equipment. These may be related to: correct interworking with the network (article 3.3a), avoidance of harm to the network (article 3.3b), protection of personal data and privacy (article 3.3c), avoidance of fraud (article 3.3d), ensuring access to emergency services (article 3.3e) and to facilitate use by users with a disability (article 3.3f).

Q4. Which essential requirements apply to my equipment?

Answer: The essential requirements are covered by Articles 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 of the Directive:

• Articles 3.1a (safety) and 3.1b (Electromagnetic Compatibility) apply to all radio equipment and telecommunication equipment
• Article 3.2 (effective use of the spectrum / orbital resource to avoid harmful interference) applies to all radio equipment
• Article 3.3 (other requirements) may be applied if invoked by a European Commission Decision.

To date, the Commission has only invoked article 3.3e (access to emergency services) in respect of avalanche beacons, personal locator beacons and certain maritime safety equipment. These articles are invoked by specific Commission Decisions. For details of these Decisions, see the web site of the European Commission.

For specific advice on which Harmonized Standards apply to your equipment and are currently in force, please contact us directly.

Q5. What if there is a new version of a Harmonized Standard?

Answer: Each row in the Official Journal listing indicates a standard which may be used to indicate presumption of conformity with the Directive. When a new version of the standard appears, the old version may still be used for a certain period of time (known as the transition period). After that period it will disappear from the table, and equipment will no longer benefit from presumption of conformity on the basis of compliance with the old version.

In the example below, the latest version of the standard is version 1.3.1. Version 1.3.1 supersedes version 1.2.1, but version 1.2.1 can still be used as an alternative until 30.06.2012. Version 1.2.1 in turn superseded version 1.1.1. Version 1.1.1 can no longer be used to benefit from presumption of conformity, as the transition period expired on 31.01.2009.

Q6. What if more than one Harmonized Standard applies?

Answer: This frequently happens when radio equipment can be installed as an option into equipment which can also be marketed without the radio module, or when different radio devices are combined into a single product.

ETSI has published Technical Report TR 102 070, a guide to the application of Harmonized Standards to multi-radio and combined radio and non-radio equipment.

Q7. What if there are no applicable Harmonized Standards?

Answer: The manufacturer may always use an alternative route to show compliance, for example the submission of a technical construction file to a Notified Body. A Notified Body is a certification, inspection or testing organization designated by a EU Member State to perform the Attestation of Conformity of products within the scope of a New Approach Directive.

It is certainly possible to initiate a new Harmonized Standard and an area that our staff have extensive experience, please contact us to discuss in confidence the options open to you.

Q8. How can I create a new Harmonized Standard or modify an existing one?

Answer: Harmonized Standards are developed under a mandate from the European Commission. If an ETSI technical committee identifies a need, it creates an ETSI work item under normal procedures (which requires the support of at least four ETSI members). The ETSI Secretariat reports the new work item to the European Commission, which identifies whether the work is covered under an existing mandate, or whether a new mandate needs to be developed.

If you are an ETSI member you should approach the relevant ETSI technical committee. However, if you are unsure of the best strategy or you are not a member, please contact us and we can arrange a discussion with the chairman of the relevant technical committee. To directly take part in the work, however, you will need be a member of ETSI.

The ETSI Operational Co-ordination Group (OCG) has set up a Steering Committee to co-ordinate ETSI activity regarding the R&TTE and EMC Directives.
The Steering Committee has developed ETSI Guide EG 201 399 to assist ETSI technical committees that are developing Harmonized Standards under the R&TTE Directive. It explains the mechanism of the R&TTE Directive and gives guidance about which technical characteristics should be considered in different circumstances. Its objective is to ensure a uniform technical understanding of the essential requirements within ETSI.

Q9. How does this fit with national radio frequency regulations?

Answer: Equipment compliant with essential requirements may be marketed. However, the use of radio equipment is governed by National Radio Regulations.

The R&TTE Directive does not harmonize radio spectrum use. Article 7.2 of the Directive allows Member states to restrict the putting into service of radio equipment, but only for reasons related to the effective and appropriate use of the radio spectrum, avoidance of harmful interference or matters related to public health. Article 4.1 obliges Member States to publish such radio interface regulations.

The European Commission may require national radio regulations to be harmonized under the terms of the Commission's Radio Spectrum Decision, 676/2002/EC.

Commission Decision 2000/299/EC defines how equipment is classified according to its use of radio spectrum. It defines two equipment classes as follows:

Class 1, which can be placed on the market and taken into service throughout the Community
Class 2, to which some Member States apply restrictions and which is required to carry an 'alert symbol'.

ETS regularly advises clients on the availability of radio frequencies in Europe, tailored to their products, and are able to provide details on spectrum usage and availability worldwide. This is provided as part of our strategic product marketing consultancy.

Q10. Public Network Operators have to declare Network Interfaces. How does this work?

Answer: The Public Telecommunications Network Operators are requested under article 4.2 of the R&TTE Directive to publish all the technical details of their publicly offered interfaces for telecommunications terminal equipment. A European Commission web page gives guidance about this to member states, national regulatory authorities, network operators and terminal manufacturers. ETS' consultants were directly involved in the drafting of the guidelines for the specification of network interfaces under article 4.2 of the Directive.

Most of those guidelines now form a single set of documents (ETSI Guide EG 201 730 series):

• generic guidelines covering general and common aspects, EG 201 730-1
• analogue narrow band wire-line interfaces, EG 201 730-2 (update of TR 101 730)
• digital wire-line interfaces, EG 201 730-3 (update of TR 101 731)
• broadband multimedia cable network interfaces, EG 201 730-4 (update of TR 101 857)
• guidelines for describing radio access interfaces, EG 201 838

NB: ETSI Technical Report TR 101 845, which specified RF Interfaces applied by Fixed Service Systems including Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), was withdrawn in May 2007.

Q11. Does ETSI approve equipment? How do I know if equipment complies?

Answer: This is a common misconception, ETSI is not an approval authority and does not certify conformant equipment. ETSI publishes standards that may be used to demonstrate conformity of a product to the essential requirements.

Manufacturers have the responsibility of making a Declaration of Conformity, which has to be provided for the user, and supplied with the equipment in a summarized form. This Declaration of Conformity has to indicate the standards that have been applied to establish conformity.

The manufacturer is also required to label the equipment with the 'CE' mark to indicate compliance, plus certain other marks in specific cases.