▍What is CTIA
CTIA, the abbreviation of Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, which established in 1984, is the wireless communication and internet association as well as a nonprofit non-governmental organization for the purpose of guaranteeing benefit of operators, manufacturers and users. The members of CTIA consist of all American operators and manufacturers for mobile radio services, as well as providers and manufacturers for wireless data services and products. Supported by FCC(Federal Communications Commission) and Congress, CTIA performs a large part of duties and functions that were used to be conducted by the government before. In 1991, CTIA created an unbiased, independent and centralized product evaluation system for wireless industry. Under this system, all wireless products in consumer grade shall take conformance test and will be granted to utilize CTIA marking once it complied with the relevant standards as well as allowing to be trade in North American communication market.
CATL(CTIA Authorized Testing Laboratory) is a testing and reviewing laboratory authorized by CTIA and the testing reports issued from CATL would be all approved by CTIA. While other testing reports and results from non-CATL will not be accepted or having no authority to submit reports to CTIA. CTIA possesses various CATL for different certificate accreditation: As for battery conformity with IEEE1725 certificate, it can only be completed by CATL which is qualified to do Battery conformity test and censorship.
▍CTIA products scope
1. Batteries 2. Bluetooth Compatibility 3. Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 4. Hearing Aid Compatibility 5. 4G/LTE Interoperability 6. Over the Air Performance 7. RF Performance of Wi-Fi Mobile Converged Devices
▍Responsibilities of each party in the process of CTIA certification
1. Sub-system supplier: Supplier of Cell, battery pack and adapter or the composite of above
a) Suppliers shall make sure their sub-system conforms to IEEE1725or IEE1625 standards accredited by CATL.
b) Suppliers shall make sure their cell manufacture comply with IEEE1725 or IEE1625 standards accredited by CATL.
c) Only the sub-system suppliers are permitted to submit the sub-system recognition requirements and adapter accreditation requirements to CTIA.
d) Suppliers shall pay to CTIA for sub-system recognition cost and adapter accreditation cost.
e) Suppliers can choose any CATL to accredit their products and shall be responsible for offering every requirement and confidential agreement between their suppliers and CATL.
f) Suppliers shall pay the related accreditation cost to CATL.
2. System supplier: supplier of cell, battery pack, and the composite of host and adapter
a) Suppliers should evaluate their system as per IEEE1725 or IEEE1625, use the CRD documents and CRSL under these two standards.
b) Only the system suppliers are allowed to submit the application for system accreditation to CTIA
c) Suppliers shall pay for system accreditation cost to CTIA.
d) Suppliers can choose any CATL to accredit their products and shall be responsible for offering every requirement and confidential agreement to their suppliers (eg. battery pack suppliers, cell suppliers, adapter suppliers)
e) Suppliers shall pay the related accreditation cost to CATL.
3. CTIA:
a) CTIA is responsible for formulating CTIA accreditation requirements, edit and manage the whole project
b) Authorized CATL to verify recognition and certification application.
c) Issue CTIA recognition and certification qualification to suppliers
d) Maintain product compliance files for certificated system and sub-system.
4. CATL:
a) CATL evaluates system, sub-system, and manufacture site according to the standards that listed in CRD and CRSL system.
b) CATL should observe the policy and processes specified in CITA authorized laboratory regulations at any time.
▍CTIA Certification Notes
1. Cell: Independent accreditation can be operated on the basis of approved manufacturing site.
2. Pack: In dependent accreditation can be operated on the basis of approved cell certification.
3. Adapter: Independent application is applicable.
4. Host: certification shall be applied with battery pack and adapter certificate .
▍CTIA Battery Testing Standards
a) Certification Requirement for Battery system Compliance to IEEE1725--- Systems with single-cell batteries and systems containing multi cells batteries connected in parallel shall be certified to IEEE 1725.
b) Certification Requirement for Battery system Compliance to IEEE1625--- Systems with multi cells batteries connected in either series or series-parallel connection shall be certified to IEEE 1625.
Warm tips: It is necessary to select appropriate accreditation standards for batteries used in mobile phone and computers, rather than to misuse IEE1725 for mobile phone and IEEE1625 for computers.
▍CTIA Certification process
▍The Advantage of MCM on CTIA Certification
● Hardware Technology: By participating the battery pack conference held by CTIA in US annually since2014, MCM is able to gain the latest news and guidelines of CTIA in a more prompt and accurate way.
● Certification Resources Technology Support: MCM has rich resources for CTIA certificate, including the cooperation of TUVRH, which meet the customized demand of clients from different parts of the world.