Dear ____________________,

As you may know, the alarm industry provides monitoring services to detect burglaries and, in many cases, fires or medical emergencies at the protected homes and businesses of many of your constituents. The alarm central stations alert the appropriate police, fire and other governmental entities about the existence, location and nature of these emergencies, making it easier for them to respond in a timely fashion. The alarm industry also provides private security patrols, which further ease the burden on the already strained budgets of police and fire departments.

The alarm industry uses a small number of radio frequencies licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in carrying out these responsibilities. Use of these radio frequencies is vital to the successful operation of our protection services. As you may know, the FCC is in the process of deciding whether to expand its spectrum auction procedures so that the Part 90 private user spectrum can be auctioned to the highest bidder. The FCC's auction proposal makes it clear that the winning bidder will be able to freeze any growth or modification of existing systems; can load the channels with high-volume commercial users; and may even be able to eventually force incumbent users off the spectrum. This would have disastrous consequences for the alarm industry, and would therefore compromise the safety of many of your constituents.

Public safety radio services are the only exception to the auction scheme proposed by Congress and the FCC. This is certainly a justified exception, given the vital role that public safety entities play in protecting life, health and property. Fortunately, Congress drafted the exemption for "public safety radio services" to include "private internal radio services used by . . . non-government entities . . ., that are used to protect the safety of life, health or property." See 47 U.S.C. § 309(j)(2), as amended by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-33, Title III, 111 Stat. 251. This is precisely how alarm companies use their radios, whether it be for internal communications to security guards, or as low power radio links that transmit fire and burglar alarms to the central station, where it is relayed to the appropriate police or fire department. Radio links are a more secure means to transmit alarms, since a radio signal cannot be sabotaged in the way that a phone line can.

Given the fact that the alarm industry works hand-in-hand with governmental safety organizations, and helps to reduce the financial and personnel burdens on these agencies, the alarm industry wishes to be classified (for auction purposes) as an exempt safety radio user, for the small handful of channels that are currently restricted to UL-listed central station use. To this end, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC) of the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), has filed comments in WT Docket 99-87 with the FCC advocating this position. We will be glad to provide you with a copy of these comments. In making this proposal, AICC wants to make it perfectly clear to Congress, the FCC and the rest of the public safety community that the alarm companies do NOT wish to gain access to the present or future allocations of public safety spectrum used by government agencies. Instead, we merely wish to protect the small amount of spectrum we have been allocated, so that we can continue to work hand-in-hand with the public safety community. Nor do we expect to gain rights to participate in the very complex regional safety spectrum use planning which takes place pursuant to the FCC's rules. We merely wish to gain status as an auction-exempt activity; if need be, this could be as a sub-category of the "public service" radio pool which the FCC has proposed to create. We would continue to use our assigned frequencies separate from the traditional public safety users.

Given the importance of this issue to many of your constituents, we wanted to advise you of our efforts and ask for your support in this effort. We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you and discuss this issue further. Hopefully, you are willing to support our position in the FCC's auction proceeding (WT Docket No. 99-87), by writing a simple letter addressed to the FCC, confirming that activities such as alarm monitoring and the reporting of burglaries, fires and medical emergencies are examples of "private internal radio systems" that use radio to protect the safety of life, health or property", and that alarm radio operations are therefore exempt from spectrum auctions under 47 U.S.C. § 309 (j)(2).

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,