New ACMA competency requirements for cablers

New Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) regulatory requirements for cabling providers announced this past July will require cablers who perform specialised cabling work - namely optical fibre, structured or coaxial - to hold the necessary competencies relevant to that cabling work.

These amendments have been made to ensure cabling providers have the necessary skills required to perform specialised cabling work for the current and emerging customer cabling environment.

This requirement will be phased in over a two-year period, whereby as of 1 July 2014, it will be mandatory for any cabler working on optical fibre, structured or coaxial cabling systems to hold the corresponding competency.

Up until now, credentials beyond Open Registration were referred to as endorsements and were voluntary. A cabler could perform such specialised cabling work with or without the corresponding credentials. But that will no longer be the case as of July 2014.

The ACMA advises that, if a cabler has previously attained endorsements for Cat 5, Fibre or Co-ax, no additional training is required, as they are equivalent to structured, optical fibre and coaxial cabling competencies respectively.

It should be understood that, beyond July 2014, cablers working on conventional telecommunications premise cabling systems that are not part of a structured cabling system, or do not include optical fibre or coax, will be able to continue such cabling work with their Open Registration and without additional competencies.

But as technology advances and ethernet and IP-based applications become more widespread and the NBN delivers optical fibre into more and more homes, specialised cabling will become more commonplace and most cablers will find themselves being requested to install them and therefore in need of one or more of these competencies.

So, over the next 18 months, cablers wishing to work in these specialist fields will need to acquire one of more of these competencies.

The means to acquire these competencies is outlined in the ACMA’s latest edition of the ‘Pathways to ACMA Cabling Provider Rules Cabler Registration’ document, released September 2012. The document can be downloaded free from the ACMA website at www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_1471.

The ACMA’s competencies form the basis for training programs developed by industry skills councils (ISCs).

Under the new arrangement, cabling providers undertaking broadband structured, optical-fibre or coaxial cabling work must have the training competencies relevant to the specialised cabling work.

As a result of the recent amendments, the cabling ISCs will ensure that training offered by registered training organisations will include the additional competencies. These new competencies are reflected in the ACMA’s revised ‘Pathways’ document.