Why is WifiTether so much slower than USB?

[ohseedee]

I've had very poor results with WifiTether over 4g. I've done numerous speed tests using speakeasy and speedtest.net and WifiTether is significantly slower than USB tethering using EasyTether.

I've played with security on and off and changing the channels, however I cant get WifiTether to come close to the download speeds I get with EasyTether. The upload speeds are pretty consistent for both at around 1mbps. Using EasyTether I can easily get between 6 and 8mbps, and the speed is pretty consistent. Using WifiTether, I'm getting around 1-5, with 2.5mbps being the average. Keeping my phone in the same spot and doing back to back tests with wifiTether I can see speeds that are very inconsistent. EasyTether is much more consistent.

I'm also considering trying Sprints HotSpot app to see if I can get better results. Has anyone done any tests to see if Sprint's HotSpot app is faster than WifiTether? Or maybe PDANet/EasyTether vs Sprint's HotSport app? I would imagine most people wouldn't have both, but if the HotSpot app is faster and more dependable it might be worth the $30/month.

Of course wifi is going to be slower than USB, but this seems to be a huge difference. EasyTether is fine when I'm just trying to use my laptop, but I do want to tether a tablet using wifiTether.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Gekko]

Give it a second, it's going to space.