Telecommunications Act
(TCA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ad­opt tech­nic­al reg­u­la­tions on the im­port, of­fer­ing, mak­ing avail­able on the mar­ket and put­ting in­to ser­vice of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in­stall­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar in re­spect of ba­sic tech­nic­al re­quire­ments with re­gard to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions, eval­u­ation of con­form­ity, cer­ti­fic­a­tion of con­form­ity, de­clar­a­tion of con­form­ity, mark­ings, re­gis­tra­tion and the ob­lig­a­tion to provide proof (Art. 3 of the Fed­er­al Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1995¹⁰⁴ on Tech­nic­al Bar­ri­ers to Trade).¹⁰⁵

² If the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has laid down ba­sic tech­nic­al re­quire­ments with re­gard to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 1, OF­COM shall gen­er­ally, in or­der to con­cret­ise them:¹⁰⁶

a.

des­ig­nate tech­nic­al stand­ards, com­pli­ance with which shall be deemed to con­sti­tute ful­fil­ment of the ba­sic re­quire­ments; or

b.¹⁰⁷

de­clare tech­nic­al stand­ards, European Uni­on leg­al in­stru­ments or oth­er rules bind­ing.

³ In im­ple­ment­ing para­graph 2, OF­COM shall take the rel­ev­ant in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards in­to ac­count; any derog­a­tions shall re­quire the con­sent of the State Sec­ret­ari­at for Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs.

^3bis OF­COM may draw up and pub­lish tech­nic­al stand­ards.¹⁰⁸

⁴ If the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has not ad­op­ted any ba­sic tech­nic­al re­quire­ments with re­gard to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 1, or if OF­COM has not con­cret­ised them in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2, the per­son of­fer­ing, mak­ing avail­able on the mar­ket¹⁰⁹ or put­ting in­to ser­vice a tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in­stall­a­tion must en­sure that it com­plies with the re­cog­nised rules of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions en­gin­eer­ing. These shall be deemed to in­clude, first and fore­most, any in­ter­na­tion­ally har­mon­ised tech­nic­al stand­ards. In the ab­sence of such stand­ards, the tech­nic­al spe­cific­a­tions of OF­COM or, in the ab­sence of such spe­cific­a­tions, the na­tion­al stand­ards shall ap­ply.

⁵ If it is ne­ces­sary for tech­nic­al tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions se­cur­ity reas­ons, OF­COM may rule that cer­tain tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in­stall­a­tions may be en­trus­ted only to spe­cially qual­i­fied per­sons. It may reg­u­late the de­tailed rules of such en­trust­ing.