The World Teleport Association (WTA) today announced that Santander Teleport has achieved full certification of its teleport in Santander, Spain under WTA’s Teleport Certification Program. Since its introduction at IBC 2015, the Certification program has quickly grown in popularity. Starting with one certified facility in 2015, the program has added 40 in 3 years, and currently has 12 teleports engaged in the quality evaluation process. Certifications have been issued to teleports operated by Servicio Satelital, USEI, Hellas Sat, AXESAT, STN, Eutelsat, du, COMSAT, Optus, Elara Comunicaciones, GlobalSat, Talia, Telenor, Telespazio, Vivacom, Cyta, Batelco, Singtel, CETel, Etisalat, Hawaii Pacific Teleport, Intelsat, Speedcast, Telstra, Primacom, Santander Teleport and Arqiva. The industry has quickly adopted the transparent, independently verified standards as a means for teleports to differentiate themselves and for customers to choose the price-performance level suitable for their applications. To achieve Provisional Certification, a teleport operator completes a +170-item questionnaire and submits it to WTA. The Association analyzes the data based on standards established by its Certification Committee and issues the Provisional Certification based on the self-reported information. The teleport then has six months to achieve Full Certification. To achieve Full Certification under WTA’s program, an auditor is dispatched to visit the teleport, provide independent validation of the data submitted in the questionnaire, and identify additional factors that may positively or negatively affect the score. Full Certification is issued at a Tier number from 1 through 4, of which 4 represents the highest degree of excellence, and remains in effect for 3 years. “We are delighted to join the selected club of certified teleports and we would like to thank the WTA for a fantastic work. The audit process taking us to our Tier 3 certification has been a great exercise for us as it not only confirms the excellent qualities of our infrastructure and processes, but it also supports our continuous improvement program with valuable feedback,” said Carlos Raba, Managing Director of Santander Teleport. “Why has Certification proven so popular with teleport operators?” said executive director Robert Bell. “It answers the new customer’s biggest question: what quality of service will I really receive? Santander Teleport is our sixteenth certified facility in Europe and our first in Spain. We appreciate Santander Teleport’s adoption of our independent, standards-based framework for ensuring high quality of service.” WTA’s Teleport Certification Program serves both teleport operators and their customers by creating an objective, transparent, and internationally accepted method for teleport operators to document the quality of their operations for customers and strategic partners. It also provides a means for customers to select teleport vendors delivering the price-performance level that is appropriate for their applications.