hotspot weirdness

jibogrey · 16 Feb 2023

trying to connect my android phone to the windows 10 (version 22H2) hotspot, but the link speed is fairly low. if i connect windows to my android hotspot i get a higher link speed.

when connecting windows to my phone i get something like this:

hotspot weirdness-windows_to_android.jpg

notice the link speed is 150mbps which is fine.

when connecting android to windows i get something like this:

hotspot weirdness-android_to_windows.jpg

the link speed is only 65mbps, but i would expect it to be faster especially since the windows network adapter is way better than the phone.

curious if anyone has any explanation for this. ive tried updating to wireless network driver directly from the intel website to beyond what windows update was providing but it did not change anything, also tried doing network full resets in windows but did not change anything.

bro67 · 16 Feb 2023

That is because your phone is only capable of using a single channel and most likely is Wireless N so that it can conserve battery power. You have to remember that phones and tablets are not going to behave the same as say a laptop or desktop.

jibogrey · 17 Feb 2023

bro67 said:

That is because your phone is only capable of using a single channel and most likely is Wireless N so that it can conserve battery power. You have to remember that phones and tablets are not going to behave the same as say a laptop or desktop.

ive seen that mentioned before when searching because i initially thought it was something to do with the phone but after seeing that my laptop connects to the same phone's hotspot at the same distance/location at 150mbps i figured that wasnt the answer.

- - - Updated - - -

after some more research this explanation is even less convincing because i have confirmed that windows is only using 20mhz channel width so anything that connects to it will only be using a single channel, regardless of the device's capabilities.
this may be due to the drivers for the intel ax201 since i have no way to force 40mhz or disable 20mhz in the driver properties, the only option are "auto" and "20mhz only" which seems weird based on other network cards ive used.
so i guess the new question is why is windows selecting 20mhz for "auto"?

some more searching i found a thread on the intel forums stating

After reviewing this further ("only 20MHz channel width available when using wireless adapters as a hotspot"), we would like to inform you that this is by Microsoft* design and not our drivers.

here.
now the more specific question is how to have a hotspot on windows with channel bonding? why will windows not behave the same as a phone or tablet?

tomdsr · 17 Feb 2023

jibogrey said:

why will windows not behave the same as a phone or tablet?

it is not a phone or a tablet. it is a pc/laptop

can an orange be an apple?
can gasoline be diesel?
can light be dark?

jibogrey · 17 Feb 2023

tomdsr said:

it is not a phone or a tablet. it is a pc/laptop

so because it is not a phone or a tablet, it must be inferior to one even though it has better hardware capabilities?
why will windows not allow a hotspot with channel bonding, given the network adapter supports it, when a phone or tablet will?
is there anyway to have more than one channel on a 5ghz band on windows 10?