The aim of the GCF scheme is to maintain confidence in new mobile wireless terminals by means of product certification. Manufacturers are encouraged to certify their products in accordance with a series of agreed criteria.

Certification

To participate in the scheme manufacturers must first become a member of GCF. They must also become Quality Qualified, which involves a self-declaration that they have a recognised quality assurance programme in place for their design, development and manufacturing processes.

In addition, manufacturers are required to certify that they possess, or have subcontracted for, the skills and means of test to perform the self-assessment of their new product's conformity with the relevant GCF certification criteria. This stage is referred to as Assessment Compliant.

Once a new product has successfully met all the relevant certification criteria the manufacturer is then able to declare it as having achieved the Terminal Certified status and can submit it to GCF for registration. The manufacturer is also required to maintain appropriate traceable documentation to support this declaration.

The GCF certification process builds upon the best practices developed from the previous type approval regime and now includes a requirement for new products to undergo interoperability tests via field trials on a minimum number of live networks.

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GCF - The Compliance Certificate 

What is GCF? What is the benefit of a GCF certified terminal? These are questions posed by regulators and consumers worldwide when considering the industry-originated GCF scheme.

Globally, the trend is towards harmonisation of standards. But today, global conformance has yet to be attained - particularly when individual states have their own regulatory frameworks with differing conformance requirements.

GCF has the answer. The GCF scheme compliments national regulatory authority schemes because its test requirements incorporate the essential requirements of those schemes.

In addition, GCF provides testing for terminal inter-operability and other functionality. This gives users confidence that their terminal will function correctly on any digital mobile network worldwide, and that it has been designed, manufactured and tested to an agreed standard. Network operators benefit by knowing that certified terminals will perform correctly on networks, to provide customers with a seamless roaming service.

A GCF-certified terminal has been tested to an agreed and continuously-updated suite of test cases. The test cases are based upon criteria developed by the global standards-making community and validated through the GCF Agreement Group. It is the Agreement Group's responsibility to ensure that a test case will perform on a range of commercially-available test equipment, providing compatibility between test facilities - whether in-house or third party.

A GCF-compliant terminal is the right choice.