Students Find Inspiration During Visit to PPL Telcom
Published 11.10.2005
On Nov. 3, 12 Pennsylvania College of Technology Cisco Networking Academy students, along with their instructor, visited the corporate headquarters of PPL Telcom in Allentown. The group was hosted by Pam Barilli, marketing communications specialist.
Welcomed for the second year by PPL Telcom President David Kelley, the students spent the morning learning about the company and hearing about the promise of the industry's future from people on the front lines of fiber-optic technology.
"We're absolutely fascinated about what we're dealing with from a technological standpoint," Kelley told the students, most of them pursuing degrees in information technology or electronics. "We haven't seen anything yet. The next 10 years will be even more exciting."
Nitin Krishna, product manager, and Miguel Gracia, Network Operations Center manager, gave overviews of their respective departments and the types of skills students need to be successful in those areas of business. Following a tour of the Network Operations Center, the group visited the Hausman Service Center, where they learned a great deal about the types of equipment used in providing voice and data communication services to PPL Telcom customers.
PPL Telcom, an unregulated subsidiary of PPL Corp., was formed in 2001 to pursue telecommunications business ventures and is the college's Internet service provider.