Despite our industry's best efforts to seek an extension, it must be assumed that the AMPS Sunset will occur on February 18, 2008. After that date, all cellular carriers no longer are required to maintain their AMPS service. While some AMPS service may endure beyond that date, possibly in sparsely populated areas, for most areas AMPS services will be turned off.

IMPACT TO YOUR COMPANY

What this means to your company is that whatever cellular backup units (both direct analog and control channel versions) you have previously installed will no longer work after February 18, 2008. Please be aware that some dealers are under the misconception that their installed cellular units are "digital" and they are not effected by this sunset issue. UNLESS YOU HAVE SPECIFICALLY INSTALLED GSM CELLULAR RADIOS, YOUR "DIGITAL" UNITS WHICH USE THE CONTROL CHANNEL OF THE ANALOG (AMPS) SERVICE WILL STOP FUNCTIONING.

PLAN OF ACTION

With only 16 months left, please plan on making this digital for analog change out with all dispatch in 2007. You may also elect to install a non-cellular based, private radio network.

You will need to secure product and schedule your technicians to make this change out before the February 18, 2008 to assure no interruption in service to your customers. In the event that the FCC can be persuaded to extend the sunset deadline, any extension would likely be brief in nature, so you must plan your retrofit efforts based on the scheduled deadline.

IF DESPITE YOUR BEST EFFORTS IT APPEARS THAT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH ALL OF THE NECESSARY CONVERSIONS BY THE DEADLINE, PLEASE LET US KNOW THE DETAILS. Please send the information to communications@csaaul.org.

Also you should not be installing any analog cellular (AMPS) radios under any condition. If there is a product failure, you should change it to a digital unit now while you are making the service call.

ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS

We know that there are a number of areas without any or sufficient GSM digital service. If you encounter such an area and cannot install a GSM unit, please provide the AICC with the following information:

• Date of attempted install
• Street address
• City, state, zip code

and send it to communications@csaaul.org. Your email may be forwarded to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), so please ensure that is factual and can be reviewed if necessary.