OVERLAND PARK, Kan.-- Universities across the nation use Sprint’s (NYSE:S) communications solutions, available on the NOW Network, to increase productivity, reduce costs and offer a unique learning experience to their students and staff. Today, more than ever before, universities are also making environmental responsibility a key factor in a wide range of strategic considerations, including their increasingly sophisticated information technology needs. As a result, Sprint is teaming with educational leaders such as The University of Arizona (UA) to deliver eco-friendly communications products.
“In addition to adopting new technology, universities play a vital leadership role in raising environmental awareness and in adopting sustainable practices,” said Ed Davalos, director of education for Sprint. “They are looking for trusted partners who not only appreciate the importance of environmental objectives but can provide practical ways to help achieve them. This includes innovative green communications solutions that can simultaneously support the educational mission, increase productivity and reduce costs.”
The UA has been recognized as one of the most environmentally sensitive campuses by many prominent organizations, including the Sustainable Endowments Institute and the National Wildlife Federation. Now Sprint is providing additional support by making it easier for students and staff at UA to “go green” through innovative offerings and opportunities, including:
New eco-friendly products including the Samsung Reclaim™ – the first phone in the United States constructed from eco-friendly bio-plastic material, available exclusively from Sprint.
Two free and easy wireless equipment collection and recycling programs – Sprint Buyback and Sprint Project Connect(SM). These programs allow universities to sell Sprint their unused wireless equipment that still has value. The equipment is then recycled or reused instead of being diverted to landfills. Wireless phones and equipment with no value are also accepted and recycled at no charge with proceeds going toward Internet safety education.
“We are extremely excited about our mutually beneficial partnership with Sprint that helps support common goals of sustainability and the community interest in being socially responsible,” said Frank Farias, executive director of the UA BookStore.
One of the most visible Sprint programs adopted by many universities combines discounts on Sprint service plans with a broad variety of Sprint handsets for students, faculty and staff.
At UA:
Sprint is the first wireless service to be offered at the main UA BookStore, with phones and service plans available at the store located in the Student Union Memorial Center.
Sprint is offering a 10 percent discount to students and a 15 percent discount to faculty and staff on service plans, with a two-year service agreement.
Students on a tight budget can get service plans starting as low as $27 a month after applying their student discount.
In addition to products for individuals, Sprint applies its green commitment to the broad IT needs inherent in a communications-intensive university setting. This includes campus networking solutions that can increase operational efficiencies – through such applications as wireless work order and inventory management – while supporting environmental responsibility.
For example, Sprint-provided location-based services can help reduce carbon emissions through better management of vehicles and assets. In addition, Sprint also offers unified communications, which eliminates the need for desk phones and ties voice service to a laptop via VoIP. Unified communications can help university users increase productivity, lower costs and, in some cases, reduce their environmental impact by allowing mobile staff members to commute and travel less frequently. Although a number of higher education institutions have converged communications solutions onto one network, no school demonstrates the benefits of this strategy better than Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, N.C.
“We were looking for a complete solution that could improve coverage and capacity issues and also enable our staff to have a single number that could route calls anywhere,” said Joseph Vittorelli, director of systems and infrastructure at Fayetteville State University. “We selected Sprint because it offered us all of this and allowed us to successfully extend dial and transfer calls from our mobile devices. This has led to increased user satisfaction by making it easier for staff and students to communicate and collaborate wherever they are on or off campus.”
Sprint was recently ranked #15 on Newsweek’s Green Ranking of America’s 500 largest corporations, the highest among U.S. wireless companies. For additional information on Sprint’s environmental initiatives visit www.sprint.com/responsibility/environment.
Sprint, named most reliable 3G network in a 13-city test by PC World, serves educational institutions through its newly formed Business Markets Group (BMG). Composed of 4,000 sales, support, marketing and operations employees, Sprint’s BMG is dedicated solely to enterprise, general business and public sector customers. BMG delivers wireless, wireline and converged solutions for companies, drawing on the nation’s most dependable 3G mobile broadband network,1 4G capabilities that are well ahead of Sprint’s competition, the fastest national push-to-talk network,2 and a comprehensive solutions portfolio of devices and applications. To learn more about Sprint’s higher-ed solution offerings, visit www.sprint.com/highereducation or contact your Sprint account team.
ABOUT SPRINT NEXTEL
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving more than 48 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2009 and the first and only 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. The company’s customer-focused strategy has led to improved first call resolution and customer care satisfaction scores. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.
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