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South Korea's ETRI(www.etri.re.kr) was named as an A2LA accredited testing laboratory in the field of optical communication, making testing periods shorter and more cost effective in future possible.
On relation to this, On April 2nd, ETRI(Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) was first firm to be recognized in domestic Korea as suitable to handle all aspects of optical communication fields from component parts to modules and systems by the A2LA(American Association for Laboratory Accreditation) after meeting conditions and passing proficiency testing requirement.
ETRI submitted application for A2LA onsite inspection evaluation test last year. The A2LA's initial inspection started from February this year and after about little more than a month, final phase of evaluations have passed early April of this year.
ETRI, obtained 'International' recognition in Optical Communication
The ETRI Optical Comm. Center's director Bong-Tae Kim said "ETRI's international recognition as optical communications testing laboratory will bring services that can meet and satisfy ISO/IEC 17025(Calibration and Testing requirements) international standards to assist in implementing world-class quality-driven optical communication technologies." to express his own assessment of the received accreditation.
ETRI obtained accreditations in ˇăTelcordia testing standard ˇă66 international standards in Optical Communication for IEEE ˇăTesting Process; reliability test for in 15 categories of Mechanical Testing and 37 categories of Electrical Testing, totaling to 52.
Optical Communication Laboratory reliability testing team leader Hyun-Suh Kang, who played a crucial role in bringing the international accreditation said "US'Telcordia Technologies is just another one of the testing laboratories like ETRI but it has been playing the role of setting the International standard. But now, that's less significant since I find the ETRI has the same qualifications to do the same."
In actuality, since year 2002, ETRI's Optical Comm. Research Center has been providing test/evaluation assistance without any monetary compensation to R&D products of 55 domestic Korean companies and until recently.
Team leader Kang added "many related domestic optical communication companies have been requesting the test evaluations to ETRI due to worries of uncertainty of passing or costly fees when obtaining the procedures through Telcordia."
Testing Cost greatly reduced to 1/7th
Thanks to the ETRI's rebirth with International accreditation, domestic Korean companies can now expect to save time and cost of testing. And this could reignite the sluggish optical communication sector within domestic Korean market.
Team leader Kang said "Telcordia charges up to $70,000 to test just one item and incase of not passing the test, the fee is non refundable. But now, ETRI can provide the same testing for about 1/7th of that with just 10 grand and reduce two to three months in testing period having not to take overseas business trips.
ETRI have made transitions to charging fees for the testing/evaluation from this January. And upon the news of International accreditation, 15 companies already have submitted requests for the testing and evaluation to ETRI coming into May.
The Optical Communication Research Lab located in the Kwang-Ju of Southern Jeonla providence, has 39 staff members and of those only 12 are to handle the testing and evaluations. On that note, Kang said "We expect to see a lot more testing requests from now on. So we will recruit more personnel with assistance from MIC (Ministry of Information and Communication) in the near future."
Meantime, any testing or testing related support request to optical communication fields can be submitted through ETRI's IT ˇ®Technology Transfer Evaluation Center' website(www.itec.re.kr/shared/index.jsp).
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