Help Why is my 4G Hotspot so slow???

[CrazyCal]

Just added the hotspot feature to my Rezound. My 4G on the phone is blazing fast at 25-30mbps download with 4-6mbps upload consistently.

Unfortunately, when I use my laptop through the hotspot, I average about 2mbps download and 4mbps upload. Why is it so slow??? I can't stand it.

 

[andr01d]

That's weird. My tablet and laptop are normally half the phone's 4G speed or a little faster while on hot spot. Connection is solid too. i'm not sure but have you double-checked all the network settings on the laptop(?)

 

[CrazyCal]

I don't know what I could adjust. It works great on my WiFi at home...

 

[CrazyCal]

So, even after ICS, my hotspot is INSANELY slow. I just did a speedtest through my laptop and pulled 0.75mbps.
Anyone have any suggestions???

 

[breadnatty08]

What is the dBm of your connection? You can find it in settings.
Is there a chance Verizon is throttling your connection?

 

[CrazyCal]

-86 dBm

Verizon shouldn't be throttling me down. I don't use it THAT much.

 

[dzuchowski]

Use pdanet

 

[breadnatty08]

-86 dBm

Verizon shouldn't be throttling me down. I don't use it THAT much.

Hm, that's a great connection. You may want to give them a call and find out. I assume this is the paid hotspot?

 

[CrazyCal]

Yeah, this is a paid hotspot.

I've been using the pdanet tether for awhile since the hotspot wasn't working before ICS. I suppose I could try using the pdanet hotspot...

 

[answerman]

Just a thought, and one that actually has nothing to do with Verizon, but I had this problem with our home WiFi a few years ago when we moved and everybody in the apartment building behind us has their own WiFi router.

Can you do a scan of available WiFi networks? The reason I ask is that, if you have the tool you need (can't remember what it is right now) on your computer, you can scan the networks and see if there's another router using the same channel. They usually default to channel 6. If you have two routers close together (in this case your home router and your phone's mobile hotspot) using the same channel, you will get really big throughput speed drops. Then, the solution is to change the broadcast channel on one of the routers so that there isn't a conflict. I would go extreme and get as far away as possible: i.e. if the problem is on channel 6, go to channel 1 or 11.

No idea if this is the issue, but thought I'd toss it out there.

 

[gruss]

That's worth a shot, wifi analyzer in the market is free and will show if there is another router nearby and what channel it's running.

 

[Bhelios]

That's worth a shot, wifi analyzer in the market is free and will show if there is another router nearby and what channel it's running.

Yep, that's the one -- app is very handy. "oh look, nobody is using channel 11. SWITCH !!"

 

[CrazyCal]

The Verizon hotspot has an "Auto" setting for channel which I assume would scan other wifi networks in the area and adjust the channel accordingly... I have wifi analyzer and will check it out.

Edit: The weekends are the only time I use my hotspot and I haven't used it since last weekend. I checked out the wifi analyzer and saw that channels 7-11 were crappy, so I changed the channel from Auto to 5. Then I ran a test on speakeasy. Results were 8mbps down and 6mbps up. I'm satisfied with that.

Unfortunately I didn't take a baseline reading so I don't know if it was a network issue isolated to last weekend or if it actually was a channel conflict. I suppose I could change it back to auto and see what happens...

BTW another wifi tool I really like is Fing. If you don't have it, download it.

 

[Grung]

I don't think it's channel thing. Before ICS, my hotspot had become somewhat fast and reliable. Don't know what they did. After, it's back and worse than ever.

Try this...run a pc using the hotspot connection. Stream some constant video like a long you tube video, open your PC's task manager, click on the networking tab, and watch your hotspot's performance. At least every 30 seconds, maybe even 20, it drops to 0, zilch, nuthin. Guarantee, your video will suffer, probably pause. Then it starts climbing again. At least before, I could get close to 2K mbs, now I'm lucky to get to 1K before it does the drop off the table thing.

This has got to be Rez software. I can tether quite well actually. ICS was supposed to fix this...nah...it's flippin worse than ever. Wonder what they're doing with the extra $20/month we spend on this? Probably subsidizing their iPhone losses.