Victor, You are correct in that FCC only registers telephone equipment under Part 68, however, for wireless devices the procedures were certification (for unlicensed transmitters under Part 15 and certain Part 18 devices), type acceptance and type approval for transmitters requiring operator licenses - these procedures are now all called certification per October 5 rulemaking to streamline equipment authorization procedures.
As you say, FCC is *the* approving agency in the US. The teeth of the regulations is in the marketing rules, which require evidence that a product meets the requirements and has required authorization - now authorization for most products is to be certification via TCB rather than certification via FCC. For products following the TCF route to compliance under the EMC directive, a competent body has to be in the loop, and for radio transmitters a notified body has to be in the loop, for both EMC directive and type approvals in the different countries, usually meaning pre-testing in the US and re-testing in the EU. The benefit of the TCB/MRA framework is (hopefully) less duplication of effort and less cost. The price is some increased complexity in the approval process, loss of the single point of reference for regulatory questions, and maybe even increased cost - but hopefully faster throughput (today it's 61+days at FCC for electronic applications, 30 days more for paper) We'll see what happens I suppose. Tom Cokenias EMC/Radio Approvals Consultant
