Sprint Prepares As Hurricane Isaac Reaches The Gulf Coast

Sprint (NYSE:S) is preparing its network, mobilizing Network Disaster Recovery staff, and staging Sprint Emergency Response Team (ERT) resources along the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Isaac continues to gain strength as a Category 1 storm and head towards the states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ahead of the 2012 hurricane season, Sprint invested more than $100 million to increase capacity and expand its wireless networks in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, including approximately $44 million in the New Orleans market, close to $2 million along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and $1.4 million along Alabama’s Gulf Coast.

Sprint’s continued preparations for Hurricane Isaac include:

• Fully fueling all permanent generators and working to ensure the availability of portable generators as necessary to meet the response needs based on Isaac’s current track and intensity.
• Fully fueling all network Points of Presence (POP) – the facilities where traffic enters and leaves the company’s global IP network, which facilitate dedicated data services for Sprint’s corporate and government customers, as well as other critical communications.
• Ensuring Sprint network reservist strike teams are on standby and ready to deploy following Isaac’s landfall.
• Activating Sprint ERT’s 25 wireless devices with service free of charge for 14 days for state and local agencies needing emergency communication assistance in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi following the official state of emergency that has been declared in these states.
• Preparing and mobilizing the Sprint Emergency Response Team’s SatCOLT (Satellite Cell on Light Truck) assets, mobile phone and broadband devices, staff and other equipment at its hubs in Texas and Florida to deploy needed resources to local first responders, emergency command centers and other public safety officials.

Additionally, with the aid of Sprint’s 3G/4G wireless service and mobile devices, weather data and hurricane awareness expert, Mark Sudduth of HurricaneTrack.com, is providing a live online stream of Isaac’s landfall from the coast of Gulfport, Miss.

Since 2001, Sprint has worked with Sudduth and his team to provide live, quick and seamless reporting during every hurricane season. Sprint has supplied HurricaneTrack.com with Sprint 3G and 4G mobile phones and broadband devices for fast and reliable mobile broadband connectivity for its in-the-field data collection and online video reporting. Sudduth is based in Wilmington, N.C., and has reported on more than 50 named tropical storms and hurricanes along the Atlantic Coast since 1998.

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