TAPAC Plenary -First Meeting 2009

Final Summary Record
TAPAC Meeting

Thursday, May 21, 2009, 13:30-17:00
Industry Canada, 300 Slater Street, Room JN1300C
Ottawa, Ontario

1. Attendance

1.1 Officials and Interested Parties

Officials and Interested Parties

Officials	Organization
Peter Chau (Chair)	Industry Canada
Hazim Dawood (Secretary)	Industry Canada
Salman Khan	Industry Canada
Matthew Mulvihill	Industry Canada
James Ndirangu	CRTC
Keith Richardson	RTS Inc.

1.2 Members

Members

Name	Company/Association	22/May/08	13/Nov/08	21/May/09
Stuart Beck	NEMKO Canada (User)	P	P	A
Kirk Mahon	Telus (Carrier)	A	A	A
Isabelle Amen	SCC(User)	A	A	P
Robert Morse	EFC (Manufacturer)	A	A	A
Stan Runge	MTS (Carrier)	A	A	A
Redouane Zidane*	Bell Canada (Carrier)	P	P	P
John Pitt*	Aliant (Carrier)	P	P	P
Tom Smith	NTS (User)	P	P	A
Philip Taffinder	Alcatel-Lucent (Manufacturer)	P	P	A

Attendance legend:
* - by teleconference
P - Present
A - Absent

Membership Matrix

Type of Membership	Maximum	Actual
Facilities-based Carrier (including CLECs)	5	4
Manufacturers and Suppliers	5	2
User Groups (including Conformity Assessment Bodies, reseller and accreditation organizations)	5	3
Total	15	9

2. Review of Proposed Agenda

• The proposed agenda (TAPAC-2009-05-001) was approved with the addition change:
  • Addition of section 9.4 MRA ETR (APEC TEL)

3. Review of the Summary Record of Last Meeting (November 13, 2008)

• The Summary Record of the November 13, 2008 meeting (TAPAC-2009-05-001) was approved with the following change:
  • Under section 7.2, the TAPAC Secretariat will keep the reporting on NIPP activities as an agenda item for future meetings. It was agreed that Industry Canada will address this agenda item as a third party on a best effort bases until some time in the future someone can regularly attend the NIPP-NAI meetings.

4. Status of Action Items

Status of Action Items

No.	Action Item Summary
1.	TAPAC Secretariat to remove the agenda item on NIPP activities from the agenda for the next TAPAC meeting. It was agreed that the agenda items remains on the agenda. IC will address this agenda item as a third party on best effort bases until some time in the future someone can regularly attend the NIPP-NAI meetings. Item closed.
2.	J. Ndirangu to provide the CRTC contacts involved in the hearing regarding services for the impaired Information was provided. Item closed.
3.	TAPAC Secretariat to update the TAPAC Terms of Reference to delete requirement for CRTC to approve technical requirements for terminal equipment. Contribution TAPAC-2009-05-003 covering proposed changes to the TAPAC Terms of Reference was provided by S. Khan (Industry Canada). Item closed.
4.	TAPAC Secretariat to make available a list of APEC economies with whom Canada has implemented the APEC TEL MRA. A list has been posted on the MRA website at www.ic.gc.ca/MRA.Item closed.
5.	TAPAC Secretariat to issue a letter ballot on proposed changes to CS–03 , Part VIII to include the harms prevention criteria for the new VDSL2 profiles. A letter ballot was issued on January 23, 2009. Item closed
6.	TAPAC Secretariat to amend DC-01 to include changes proposed in contribution TAPAC-2008-11-005, which were approved at the last meeting. Proposed changes were added to DC-01. Item closed

5. Membership Review

• The TAPAC Secretariat noted that THOMSON Multimedia Ltd. is no longer operating in North America and that it will be removed from the membership list.
• The TAPAC Secretariat noted that there has been a considerable drop in attendance at the May 2009 meeting compared to previous meetings, and discussed the effects the economy is having on the ability of member
• Organizations to attend the TAPAC meetings. As a result, the TAPAC agreed to relax the rules concerning removal from the voting lists organizations that miss three consecutive meetings until the situation improves.

6. Contributions

Contributions

File	Types of Contributions
TAPAC-2009-05-001	Draft Summary Record of November 13, 2008 Meeting
TAPAC-2009-05-002	Proposed Agenda for May 21, 2009 Meeting
TAPAC-2009-05-003	Update toTAPAC Terms of Reference
TAPAC-2009-05-004	Update to Technical Requirements for Telephone Line Surges, CS–03 , Part I.
TAPAC-2009-05-005	Cross-reference Table on Methods of Measurements for CS–03 , Part I.

7. Reports

7.1 FCC/ACTA/TIA TR-41

7.1.1 FCC

• H. Dawood (Industry Canada) reported that an International Workshop on MRAs for Conformity Assessment of EMC and Telecommunications Equipment was held from May 5-8 2009 in Gaithersburg, MD.
• The workshop was co-hosted by the FCC and NIST, and attracted over 145 participants from over 14 countries. Stakeholders included Regulatory Authorities, Designating Authorities, Other Government Entities, Test Labs, Certification Bodies, Accreditation Bodies, Regional Accreditation Organizations, Manufacturers, Trade Associations, Industry Consultants, and other interested parties
• Many regulators provided updates on the status of their MRA implementation as well as overview of their conformity assessment regimes and market surveillance.

7.1.2 ACTA

• The ACTA had a virtual meeting on December 11 2009, and a face-to-face meeting on March 5th 2009.
• The work on the Connector Attestation Project is still under going. The draft Connector Attestation ACTA-08-023 was reviewed by the ACTA Secretariat’s legal council and received positive feedback, and is being considered for formal adoption.
• Updates were made to the ACTA on-line filing system. These updates include several features to guide new filers moving through the system.
• The planning for an ACTA Educational Seminar is currently underway and an ad-hoc was formed for that purpose. No date has been set yet.
• Openings remain on the Executive Council, particularly in the manufacturer segment. Anyone wishing to join the ACTA Council may review the open positions and nominations procedures via Part68.org.
• ACTA decided to select ATIS and TIA as joint sponsors for the ACTA from February 2009 – February 2013.
• The next ACTA meeting will be a virtual meeting and will be held on June 04, 2009.

7.1.3 TIA TR-41

• The TIA 41.9 subcommittee:  Technical and Administrative Regulatory Considerations met in Feb and May 2009.
• TR-41.9 sent out TIA-968B:  Technical Requirements for Connection of Terminal Equipment to Telephone Network for default letter ballot on May 5th, 2009
• PN-3-0017-RV2, TSB-129-B: Telecommunications - Telephone Terminal Equipment - U.S. Network Connections Regulatory Approval Guide currently under review
• Amendment to TSB-31-C:  Rationale and Measurement Guidelines for TIA-968, Addendum 1, on test methods for acoustic output levels for analog and digital telephones, was published February 2009.
• Subcommittee is awaiting release of Rationale and Measurement Guidelines for TIA-968-B, before undertaking creation of document TSB-31-D
• The ACTA and TIA are planning a joint educational seminar to occur in late 2009 or 2010.
• The TIA 41.3 subcommittee decided that further study was required before moving forward with publication on Handset Magnetic Measurement Procedures and Performance Requirements (to become ANSI/TIA-1083-A).  The test stimulus level for digital telephones was based on the loss plan info in TIA-912. After ballot was opened it was discovered a key value was changed by 3dB in subsequent revisions of TIA-912 (A and B), as proposed earlier by VTech for test signal levels for digital CPE
• Submissions regarding c63.19 (the IEEE HAC standard for cell phones) proposed changes in the spectral and temporal weighting of the magnetic noise measurement were reviewed.  Additional work needed to implement temporal weighting in the test systems used, round robin testing to be conducted to confirm impact of this change.
• Decision was made to skip August face-to-face meeting of TR-41 and subcommittees. Instead TR-41 will hold a virtual meeting on Friday August 14, 2009 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm EDT.  Next face-to-face meeting scheduled for second week of November, 2009.

7.2 ISO/SCC Activities Review

• Isabelle Amen (SCC) provided a report on SCCactivities (Note: Report is available on TAPAC Workspace at: http://www.ic.gc.ca/TAPAC.)

7.3 CRTC Activities

• J. Ndirangu (CRTC) provided a report on CRTC activities (Note: Report is available on TAPAC Workspace at: http://www.ic.gc.ca/TAPAC.).)

7.4 Market Surveillance

• M. Mulvihill (Industry Canada) reported that in the 2008-2009 fiscal year the Certification and Engineering Bureau (CEB) conducted the following audits:
  • 35 terminal audits (2 failures);
  • 20 radio audits (9 failures); and
  • 29 SAR audits (1 failure).
• The CEB also received during the same fiscal year 380 registrations of TEL and 3600 certifications of radio equipment. 
• IC is in the process of enhancing and improving its market surveillance procedure. As part of the process, IC will circulate an initial draft of the procedure to manufacturers for their input.
  

7.5 TAPAC Bulletins

• One TAPAC bulleting has been issued since the last meeting: TAPAC Bulletin 2009-01: Canada Gazette Notice No. SMSE-013-08 – CS–03 , Part V, Issue 9, Amendment 1.

7.6 Telephone Companies Industry Advisories

• No new  Industry Advisories

7.7 International Activities

7.7.1 APEC

• P. Chau (Industry Canada) reported that the APEC TEL Task Force met on April 13-14, 2009 in Singapore.
• Significant progress was made at the MRATask Force meeting that the group agreed on a final text of the MRA TR (will be called ETR for Equivalence of Technical Requirements).
• The text, along with its Annex A, will be circulated to all economies for industry comments and will be ready for approval by APEC TEL WG in APEC TEL 40.
• Canada and Korea provided contributions on Market Surveillance. The MRATF Chair decided that inter-sessionally, Canada will coordinate the input from APEC economies on terms of reference for this type of collaboration. (Note: TAPAC members interested in obtaining any of the presentations given at the APEC TEL Task Force meeting can contact the TAPAC Secretariat).

7.7.2 CITEL

• P. Chau reported that on CITEL an issue was brought up concerning conformity testing. This is regarding the introduction of an ITU mark on products meeting the ITU regulations specifically related to inter-operability. There were two opposing views. One driven by the EU, Canada, US and Japan stating that more analysis need to be done before implementing. The paper was presented at CITEL and a survey will be put together to solicit input from CITEL countries.
• The topic of MS was also brought up at CITEL to solicit some input. An action item was put together to conduct a survey to solicit input on the subject.

8. Business Arising from the Last Meeting

8.1 DC-01

• H. Dawood reported that the changes in contribution TAPAC-2008-11-005 discussed at the November 2008 were added to Issue 3 of DC-01 (Note: Issue 3 of DC-01 was released on May 30, 2009). The changes include clarification concerning the applicability of the procedural requirements, given in DC-01, to handset telephones subject to the technical requirements of CS–03 Part V. the changes also include an update to the audit requirements of section 7.

9.0 Other Business

9.1 Conformity Assessment for VoIP Phones

• Update to TAPAC Terms of Reference
  • S. Khan (Industry Canada) presented contribution TAPAC-2009-05-003 on updates to the TAPAC terms of reference.
  • The CRTC gave an interim approval to make the proposed changes given that the term “give effect” in section 15.1 of the Telecommunications Act is clarification to the satisfaction of the CRTC.

9.2 Update to Technical Requirements for Telephone Line Surges, CS–03 , Part I

• H. Dawood presented contributionTAPAC-2009-05-004 proposing that the technical requirements for Telephone Line Surge – Types A and B in CS–03 Part I be presented in a table format, similar to TIA-968-B.
• The committee agreed to send the contribution for a 30 day comment period followed by a letter ballot.  

9.3 Cross-reference Table on Methods of Measurements for CS–03 , Part I

• H. Dawood presented contribution TAPAC-2009-05-005 proposing a new way of specifying methods of measurements in CS–03 , Part I by referencing the test methods in TSB-31-C.
• The SCC recommends maintaining the status quo and updating the methods of measurements in CS–03 Part I.
• A consensus could not be reached at the meeting. IC and the SCC agreed to discuss inter-sessionally to decide on an approach.

9.4 MRA ETR (APEC TEL)

• P. Chau provided an update on the progress made at the APEC TEL 39 MRA TF meeting on MRA ETR.
• The TAPAC Secretariat will provide TAPAC members with the proposed text of the MRA ETR for comments.

10. Next Meeting

• The next TAPAC meeting will be held at the Certification and Engineering Bureau of Industry Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, November 26th, 2009. The subsequent TAPAC meeting will be held at the CRTC’s facilities in Hull, Quebec on Thursday, May 20th, 2010.