Wireless carriers that are not members of the CTIA now can participate in the Amber Alert program, designed to help find missing children by sending information to customer cell phones.

“We thought it was too valuable an opportunity to limit just to CTIA members,” said John Walls, vice president of public affairs for the CTIA, which sponsors the wireless Amber Alert program.

Currently, 26 of the CTIA's 40 members participate in Amber Alert, including some regional wireless companies such as Cellular South and Rural Cellular Corp. Each company develops its own promotional plan for the offering, which sends tips such as license plate numbers to participants' cell phones at no charge. Participants can sign up to receive alerts pertinent to as many as five ZIP codes.

About 300,000 cellular users have signed up for the program nationwide, and 261 missing children were involved in Amber Alerts last year, said Bob Hoever, associate director of training for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which provides information for the alerts.

“In many cases, tips are called in from people using wireless, so it's a natural fit to receive alerts on wireless,” he said. “If a child is abducted, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. The more eyes and ears you have looking, the better the odds are of finding that child.”

Noting that the program encompasses other elements such as law enforcement and media alerts, Hoever said, “Overall, the Amber Alert program has been a huge success. We've had 324 children returned specifically because of Amber Alert and the public's willingness to get involved and help.”

Participating wireless operators receive alert messages via their short message service networks through an interface that connects them to Syniverse Technologies, the wireless signaling and roaming services provider that administers the wireless Amber Alert program.

“We usually expect around 700,000 messages with each alert,” said David Robinson, manager of public policy for Syniverse. As information develops, new messages are sent or new ZIP codes are added, he said.

Cellular South has promoted the Amber Alert program to its 360,000 customers in five southeastern states through billing messages and bag-stuffers distributed at its retail stores. A Cellular South spokesman was unable to confirm how many customers had opted in, but he said, “We want to make it a bigger program for 2008,” adding that the program matches the company's positioning of itself as a good corporate citizen. “The way we look at it, it's a cost of doing business because that's the way we do business.”

A spokeswoman for Rural Cellular, which serves small cities and rural areas in 15 states, also was unaware of how many customers had opted in to the program. The company also promotes the offering through customer bills and in-store promotions.

“We had it featured for six weeks on our home page and saw a huge increase in the number signing up,” she added.

Echoing the Cellular South spokesman, the Rural Cellular spokeswoman said the program “really fits with where we want to be — that effort dovetails with the company's mission and outreach.”

Such efforts could also get a boost this fall when the CTIA rolls out a public service campaign for Amber Alert it is currently developing with the Ad Council.