Understanding the new ACMA cabler competency requirements

The changes to the ACMA’s competency requirements for Registered cablers addresses concerns within the cabling industry that cablers may not have the appropriate skills required to perform specialised cabling work (ie, beyond the scope of a base Registration) for the current and emerging cabling environment. This means from July 2014, cablers will need to have the necessary competencies in whatever specialist field of cabling they’re working in.

Until now, specialist cabling such as optical-fibre, coaxial and structured cabling could be installed by Open Registered cablers without any specialist competencies (although these were readily available and cablers were encouraged to acquire them through further education). However, they will no longer be voluntary as of July 2014.

Put simply, if you work on specialist cabling, you’ll need proven competency in that speciality. If you don’t work in a particular speciality, you won’t need that competency. For example, if you install Category 5 or 6 data cabling, you’ll need a Structured Cabling competency added to your Open Registration. If you only install telecommunications cabling, your Open Registration will cover this and you won’t need additional competencies. If you decide to install structured cabling in the future, you will need to acquire that competency.

Consider the following scenarios that best describe your circumstances to determine what you need to do before July 2014:

Open Registration with no endorsements: If you’re not installing specialty cabling, you won’t need to do anything extra. Simply maintain your Open Registration and it will remain as is. If you’ll be working on structured, fibre or coax cabling as of July 2014, you’ll need to acquire the appropriate competencies through training and/or assessment.

Open Registration with Cat 5/structured, fibre or coax endorsements: Holding any of these old endorsements means you won’t necessarily need any additional training in that specialty, as they’re equivalent to the corresponding new competencies. When renewing registration after July 2014, your current endorsements will be listed as competencies. To do other specialist cabling, you’ll need to acquire the relevant competencies through training and/or assessment.

Restricted Registration: Restricted cablers must attain the new Broadband competency if they want to perform specialist cabling work. This is for residential premises point-to-point work only and doesn’t apply to Open Registered cablers. Endorsement training modules won’t be recognised after June 2014. To acquire competencies from July 2014, cablers will have to be assessed by registered training organisations (RTOs) as ‘competent’ for cabling specialties.

Recognition for Prior Learning (RPL): RPL processes and decisions are performed by RTOs, who are required by the ACMA to ensure that credit for prior learning - vendor or classroom-based training or industry experience - is accurately mapped to relevant competencies. Cablers with vendor certification should notify the RTO as part of their RPL assessment. Vendors will now have to align their certification training to competencies if they want them ACMA-recognised - as only RTOs will be able to issue formal certifications and statements of attainments.

If you need training to secure competencies, ACMA-approved training providers are listed at: www.brca.asn.au/pdfs/CPR%20Accredited%20Training%20Providers.pdf.

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