Sprint is the first wireless carrier to begin testing of targeted emergency-alert technology.

Here’s how it works.  Sprint customers will get text messages advising them of any public-safety alerts.  Wherever they are.

If a Sprint customer lives in New York and is in Kansas and a tornado is coming, the Sprint customer in Kansas will get a text message.  In Kansas.

Sprint will partner with SquareLoop to put the technology into the Sprint handsets.

The testing will begin in California, with a wide-scale deployment to come later.

“Sprint is excited to be the first wireless carrier to offer its customers the full capabilities of the SquareLoop technology,” said Chris Hackett, V.P. of Public Sector Sales Programs at Sprint Nextel.  “This partnership reflects Sprint’s commitment to improve the customer experience by optimizing the delivery path for critical public-safety text alerts to Sprint customers, allowing them to reliably receive these alerts when and where they are most needed.”

Sprint, as you might have guessed from the ads, is the official telecommunications partner of ProFootballTalk, and has been for nearly two years.  So if you like what you see on this page (or if you don’t), go get yourself a Sprint phone.