Sprint Donation To Help Prairie View with Broadband Technology

Prairie View, Texas
The Sprint Corporation has donated $600,000 to Prairie View A&M University to build a broadband data laboratory and to support curriculum changes at the school. The laboratory will focus on high-speed telecommunications systems with an emphasis on Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) broadband technologies, a research area that is critical to Sprint's business as a telephone and Internet service provider. 
Nearly 300 Prairie View electrical engineering students will be targeted by the
laboratory's programs.
"The Sprint Foundation has provided part of the funding for this innovative project because we know it will have a positive impact on the African American community and this great university," says David Thomas, executive director of the Sprint Foundation. "We think that the future of addressing the technological divide is to work closely with the next generation of leaders who are using the most advanced technology available."
Sprint has traditionally supported advanced communications research. The company sponsors other labs with related research at the University of Kansas, Georgia Tech, Harvard University, UCLA, University of Missouri-Kansas City, MIT and Stanford.  
"Sponsoring research into technologies like DSL in an academic setting such as Prairie View A&M is a sound investment for Sprint," says Ben Buley, vice president of Broadband Local Networks at Sprint. "Consumers and businesses are demonstrating their demand for applications every day, creating a fertile environment for accelerated technological development."
Prairie View's College of Engineering and Technology is one of the largest producers of baccalaureate degrees in engineering for African Americans in the nation. Sprint is a global communications company that integrates long-distance, local and wireless communications services.