It was officially introduced in the Americas on October 13, 1983,[1][2][3] and was deployed in many other countries too, including Israel in 1986, Australia in 1987, Singapore in 1988, and Pakistan in 1990.

As of February 18, 2008, carriers in the United States were no longer required to support AMPS and companies such as AT&T and Verizon Communications have discontinued this service permanently.

In 1960, John F. Mitchell[7][8][9] became Motorola's chief engineer for its mobile-communication products, and oversaw the development and marketing of the first pager to use transistors.

Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, led a team that produced the first cellular handset in 1973 and made the first phone call from it.

In general terms, AMPS was very similar to the older "0G" Improved Mobile Telephone Service it replaced, but used considerably more computing power to select frequencies, hand off conversations to land lines, and handle billing and call setup.

In AMPS, the cell centers could flexibly assign channels to handsets based on signal strength, allowing the same frequency to be re-used, without interference, if locations were separated enough.

As an analog standard, it was susceptible to static and noise, and there was no protection from 'eavesdropping' using a scanner or an older TV set that could tune into channels 70–83.

A person intercepting an ESN/MDN pair could clone the combination onto a different phone and use it in other areas for making calls without paying.

EIA/TIA/IS-3 was superseded by EIA/TIA-553 and TIA interim standard with digital technologies, the cost of wireless service is so low that the problem of cloning has virtually disappeared.

For each market area, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed two licensees (networks) known as "A" and "B" carriers.

By the late 1980s, the cellular industry's subscriber base had grown into the millions across America and it became necessary to add channels for additional capacity.

Laws were passed in the US which prohibited the FCC type acceptance and sale of any receiver which could tune the frequency ranges occupied by analog AMPS cellular services.[why?]

AMPS and D-AMPS have now been phased out in favor of either CDMA2000 or GSM, which allow for higher capacity data transfers for services such as WAP, Multimedia Messaging System (MMS), and wireless Internet access.

Digital technologies such as GSM and CDMA2000 support multiple voice calls on the same channel and offer enhanced features such as two-way text messaging and data services.

In 2006, ADT asked the FCC to extend the AMPS deadline due to many of their alarm systems still using analog technology to communicate with the control centers.

[25] Cellular companies who own an A or B license (such as Verizon and Alltel) were required to provide analog service until February 18, 2008.

While this was OK for Europe, it meant that GSM could not cover large, sparsely populated rural areas of Australia cost effectively.