In the real world San Jose is one of the areas where residents have signed up most quickly. As a result, it has served as one of the earliest tests of the technology's limits. Like cable modem technology, wireless service quality can decline as more people in a neighborhood get online. The problem is just that Sprint has too little bandwidth shared by too many people for the technology they selected. But as more people came on the system, speeds trailed off.
Sprint says it's aware of the problem in a few areas, and it is already working to fix it.
It is installing new equipment in San Jose that will shrink the area served by a given transmitter and receiver. This will then theoretically reduce the number of people competing for bandwidth. That should restore the fast downloads soon, the company says. But there is a proven technical upgrade. We take this very seriously.