BY HEATHER WONG-– Sprint (NYSE:S) is teaming up with the Myron B. Thompson Academy (MBTA), an online K-12 Public Charter School that provides online instruction to students in Hawaii, to empower eighth grade students on Oahu with Overdrive™ 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot devices by Sierra Wireless and powered by Sprint. The project is part of a one-year pilot grant program that will give the students from MBTA the freedom to study whenever and virtually wherever they choose.
“Many students are already veterans when it comes to using technology and the Internet for education,” said Bryan Ito, Sprint Hawaii business sales manager. “By giving students the ease to access online learning on the go anytime, we hope to enhance student performance and their overall learning experience.”
This pilot program will service MBTA eighth-grade students on Oahu for the 2010-11 school year and the devices will work island-wide through the Sprint 3G and 4G networks.
Students will be able to connect simultaneously up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices – including laptops, music players, gaming devices and cameras – through a single connection (via Wi-Fi). When connected on 4G, the Overdrive provides a network connection that is up to 10 times faster than today’s 3G speeds.1
“The goal of this program is to provide teachers with new ways to capture student work, and improve student achievement through the use of mobile technologies,” said Jacey Waterhouse of Myron B. Thompson Academy. “The greater level of accessibility to course content and materials from nearly any location will encourage students to realize learning happens everywhere and at anytime, and is not confined to the classroom.”
Including Honolulu and Maui, Sprint 4G covers 48 cities across the county including, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., San Antonio and Seattle. In 2010, Sprint will launch many more markets including, but not limited to, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Pittsburgh and San Francisco.
“Sprint 4G is ever expanding. You get lightning fast speeds in 4G areas, and if you’re in another city where a 4G signal is not available, you can still depend on Sprint’s 3G Network to keep you connected,” said Ito.
The Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot extends mobile broadband experience to any Wi-Fi enabled device and allows users to break away from today’s fixed Wi-Fi hot spot locations. Sprint 4G provides faster speeds and more capacity to enable user experience for high-bandwidth applications like streaming music, interactive gaming, transferring large data files or downloading videos in seconds. The dual-mode feature of Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot allows users to enjoy 4G performance in any Sprint 4G market or use the Sprint 3G network nationwide. Compact, portable and easy to carry, Overdrive also supports memory cards up to 16GB of shared storage via MicroSD slot on the device and has built-in Wi-Fi GPS capability.
Submitted by Sprint. For more information on Sprint 4G and Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot, or to find your nearest Sprint retailer, visit www.sprint.com/4g.