COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

Contractual Obligations

We incurred significant commitments and contractual obligations as of December 31, 2016 as outlined below.

We have entered into two exclusive agreements with vendors to purchase a minimum number of paging devices with one commitment beginning in 2015, one commitment beginning in 2016 and both commitments ending in 2018. The total purchase commitment of these agreements is $10.2 million of which $4.0 million remained as of December 31, 2016. The minimum purchase requirement must be met prior to the end of each agreement, however there is no requirement that we purchase a minimum amount during interim periods.

Other Commitments

We have various LOCs outstanding with multiple state agencies which are considered to be immaterial to the consolidated financial statements. The LOCs typically have one to three-year contract requirements and contain automatic renewal terms.

Legal Contingencies

We are involved, from time to time, in lawsuits arising in the normal course of business. We believe these pending lawsuits will not have a material adverse impact on our financial position or statement of income.

On January 23, 2017, 911 Notify, Inc. filed a lawsuit against us in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,151,385; 6,775,356; and 8,965,447 pertaining to our software solution for notification of 911 emergency calls. We have settled this lawsuit for an immaterial amount.

Operating Leases

We have operating leases for office and transmitter locations. Substantially all of these leases have lease terms ranging from one month to five years. We continue to review our office and transmitter locations, and intend to replace, reduce or consolidate leases, where possible.

Future minimum lease payments under non-cancelable operating leases at December 31, 2016 were as follows:



For the Year Ended December 31,	(Dollars in thousands)
2017	$	6,672
2018	4,421
2019	2,282
2020	1,421
2021	1,257
Thereafter	1,097
Total	$	17,150

These leases typically include renewal options and escalation clauses. Where material, we recognize rent expense on a straight-line basis over the lease period. The difference between rent paid and rent expense is recorded as accrued other and other long-term liabilities on the consolidated balance sheets.

Total rent expense under operating leases for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014, was approximately $17.9 million, $18.5 million and $19.3 million, respectively.

Indemnification

We and certain of our subsidiaries, as permitted under Delaware law, have entered into indemnification agreements with several persons, including each of our present directors and certain members of management, for defined events or occurrences while the director or member of management is, or was serving, at our request in such capacity. The maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification agreements is unlimited; however, we have a director and officer insurance policy that limits our exposure and enables us to recover a portion of any future amounts paid under the terms of the policy. As a result of our insurance policy coverage, we believe the estimated fair value of these indemnification agreements is immaterial. Therefore, we have not recorded a liability for these agreements as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Our services and product sales agreements typically include certain provisions that indemnify customers from claims of intellectual property infringement made by third parties arising from the use of our products. The maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification agreements is unlimited; however, we have an insurance policy that limits our exposure and enables us to recover a portion of any future amounts paid under the terms of the policy. As a result of our insurance policy coverage, we believe the estimated fair value of these indemnification agreements is immaterial. To date, we have not incurred and have not accrued for any costs related to such indemnification provisions.