Since I have a data package that supports tethering now, I decided to mess with it a bit. I don't have much use for tethering, but it seems like a cool concept.
So, I set up a hotspot on my phone. I connect via Wifi with my laptop running Windows 7 and do a quick speed test. 5 megs down, 1.5 megs up. Not bad, not bad at all. So I use it for a while just to test it out. After 5-6 minutes, I notice everything is a lot slower than it was before. I do another speed test, now it's 2 megs down, .45 megs up. Er... okay. Performance keeps degrading and I start monitoring internally with Resource monitor and notice all I'm getting is 5-7k per second down now. (This is about the speed of 56k dialup.) It'll sometimes spike as high as 700k/sec for a few seconds, then drop back down. I've tried connecting to various websites and such to make sure it's not just one specific website having problems, and it doesn't seem to be.
If I turn the hotspot off and on again, I'll get the faster speeds again for a few minutes but performance degrades quickly. During this, I'd occasionally go into Safari on my iPhone and check speeds there. (Being very careful to make sure there's not an app using data on my phone at the same time as I'm checking speeds on the laptop.) They're fine, getting around 4 megs down, 1 meg up. It's not that my connection is bad, there seems to be some kind of disconnect somewhere else. Signal strength is fine on both Wifi and the iPhone. I can't figure out what's going on here. I tried USB tethering, but it wouldn't work at all. (Didn't come up as an active network.) So it looks like I have to use Wifi at this point.
But I'm kind of stumped here. Anyone have any ideas? As I said, I don't have much use for tethering, but I've gotten into the "There's a problem. It must be fixed, just on principle." mindset.
So, I set up a hotspot on my phone. I connect via Wifi with my laptop running Windows 7 and do a quick speed test. 5 megs down, 1.5 megs up. Not bad, not bad at all. So I use it for a while just to test it out. After 5-6 minutes, I notice everything is a lot slower than it was before. I do another speed test, now it's 2 megs down, .45 megs up. Er... okay. Performance keeps degrading and I start monitoring internally with Resource monitor and notice all I'm getting is 5-7k per second down now. (This is about the speed of 56k dialup.) It'll sometimes spike as high as 700k/sec for a few seconds, then drop back down. I've tried connecting to various websites and such to make sure it's not just one specific website having problems, and it doesn't seem to be.
If I turn the hotspot off and on again, I'll get the faster speeds again for a few minutes but performance degrades quickly. During this, I'd occasionally go into Safari on my iPhone and check speeds there. (Being very careful to make sure there's not an app using data on my phone at the same time as I'm checking speeds on the laptop.) They're fine, getting around 4 megs down, 1 meg up. It's not that my connection is bad, there seems to be some kind of disconnect somewhere else. Signal strength is fine on both Wifi and the iPhone. I can't figure out what's going on here. I tried USB tethering, but it wouldn't work at all. (Didn't come up as an active network.) So it looks like I have to use Wifi at this point.
But I'm kind of stumped here. Anyone have any ideas? As I said, I don't have much use for tethering, but I've gotten into the "There's a problem. It must be fixed, just on principle." mindset.
