5 Simple Steps to Speed Up Mobile Data Hotspot that Work

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  • Post last modified:April 11, 2023
  • Reading time:21 mins read

If you always use your Android phone as a hotspot so you can share your internet connection, one of the things you’re going to be concerned about is speed.

I always use my Android phone as a hotspot, this article you’re reading was published on this website using my Android phone as a hotspot to my computer. So, in today’s article, we’re going to talk about how to increase your hotspot speed on your Android phone.

Like always, I try to make my articles very beginner friendly, but as usual, if you have questions after reading, let me know.

Now, here are 5 simple steps you can take, to make your hotspot fast for connected devices.

So, let’s begin.

Don’t Frequently Move the Phone

Ever noticed how sometimes when you’re in a car or on a bus etc., you get to areas with bad reception and eventually you get to somewhere else and you get full bars?

Well, it’s the same thing even when you’re in your house. If you constantly move the phone, your mobile data is going to struggle to stay connected to your internet service provider.

Since your computer or other devices connected to your phone’s hotpot depend on the speed coming from it, they’re going to suffer as well.

This is one of the reasons why your internet connection is slow.

What You Should Do

You should find a specific spot in your house where your mobile data is really good. Should be even better if you can get 4G LTE. If you only have 3G, don’t worry, it’s still very usable.

If you can find a place close to an outlet, it will be even better. Just keep the phone there and connect it to a charger. This is because enabling your phone’s hotspot will drain your battery faster than most activities you carry out on your phone.

So, when you find the “perfect spot”, head back to the device, connect to the hotspot and start browsing.

The internet from the main phone will be stable and you will not get speed issues anymore.

Stop Apps from Using Internet on Your Phone

Usually, when your mobile data is turned on, all the apps on your phone that need internet (which surprisingly are a lot) will start using your mobile data to update resources.

Example is when you turn on your phone in the morning, as soon as you turn on mobile data, you will get the emails, the Facebook notifications, the WhatsApp messages, the Play Store updates, etc.

If you’re connected to your phones hotspot, at this point, you’ll see that the internet is going to get slow.

This is because the phone is going to give more priority to the apps installed on it, over the devices connected to its hotspot.

What You Should Do

I have an article that talks about how you can stop apps from using your internet on your Android phone. You can read it up to know what to do.

But just to tell you how it works, the app you’re going to be using is NetGuard.

Get it installed and select the apps you want to have internet when you turn on internet.

The app also has the option to disable the hotspot from sharing data so you’re going to have to make sure you have your hotspot sharing option enabled. Here is how.

Video: How To Enable Hotspot Tethering on NetGuard

The first thing is to go to the options icon at the top right, tap it then tap “Settings”.

1. go to options
2. select settings

Under the settings, tap Network Options then enable “Allow Tethering”

3. select network options
4. enable allow tethering

That’s all, you’re now ready to share your hotspot with other devices while blocking apps on your phone from using your mobile data.

Although NetGuard is free, I believe this option is available on the paid version, which is what I use. So check the app out and if you can afford it, get it.

Block Apps or Software from Using Hotspot

You should already know what I mean by this. The point above covers the blocking apps using up mobile data on your phone with the hotspot turned on aspect.

Now we’re going to talk about the devices connected to the hotspot.

Now, when most devices get an internet connection, all the software or apps installed on the devices start updating or downloading all the necessary files they need.

For instance, if you’re trying to browse using your Chrome browser and your Anti-Virus software is updating in the background using the hotspot, your internet is going to seem really slow on the Chrome browser.

Same thing with mobile phones which I already explained above.

What You Should Do

For your mobile phone, you should use NetGuard, and this time instead of blocking some apps from using Mobile Data, block them from using WiFi.

Like I said, I already have a tutorial on that so check that here.

On a computer, I use a software called NetBalancer. I use a Windows computer, so I’m not sure how to use it on a Mac, I’m not even sure if it’s available for Mac users… sorry.

It is a paid software, but you can try it out for about a week to see if it suits your needs.

Here’s how you use it.

You need it running on your computer first by clicking here to download the software then installing it on your computer.

Next, watch the video below, or just read on.

Video: How To Configure NetBalancer

After you’re done installing the software, open it.

Head to “Edit”, click it and then click “Settings”.

1. click edit
2. click settings

You’re going to be in the Traffic Tab at this point, just make sure everything is set like the way it is in the picture below. Make sure you also adjust the “Default Download Priority” and “Default Upload Priority” sections. When you’re done, click ok.

3. settings page
4. click ok

After taking the previous step, the next step involves selecting all the programs on your computer that you’re interested in using with the hotspot (or any network for that matter). In this example, I will be using Chrome.

Right click and click “Edit Priority”.

5. right clikc software
6. click edit priority

Set the Download Priority “high” or “normal” and do the same for Upload Priority.

Click OK.

7. select high

Do this for all the software you want.

Finally, give your “Service Traffic” internet connection.

After using this software for a while, I’ve realized that without this option enabled, other enabled software do not work with internet.

So right click Service Traffic and set Download and Upload priorities high or normal.

Next tap OK.

8. click ok

Finally, enable NetBalancer by clicking Edit and Enable.

9. click enable balancer

If you don’t want to go through all the steps above, I’ve exported my settings so you guys can just import without doing any extra work.

Chrome, Firefox, IDM, Service Traffic are enabled with my settings. You can edit it if you want to add more software.

Here’s a video on how you can import it.

Video: How To Import NetBalancer Settings

If you can’t watch the video, well here are the steps with pictures.

To import settings on NetBalancer, click “File” and then under Load, click “All Settings”.

1. click file
2. hover Load
3. click all settings

Now, browse through your computer to find the file you downloaded via my link double click on it and wait for it to load.

4. select netbalance file
5. settings loaded

And you’re done. Like I said, you can add more software if you want, just right click on any of the software you want to give internet to and edit Download and Upload priority.

Don’t Be Too Far from the Hotspot

The devices connected to your phone’s hotspot should not be too far from it. If they are, it’s going to be hard for them to constantly communicate (i.e. transfer data).

I believe I don’t have to tell you what to do lol.

P.S. keep the devices close.

Switch to 5.0 GHz

By default, your phone’s hotspot’s AP Band is set to 2.4 GHz. No worries, I’m not going to make this article too techy.

However, what you need to know is that 2.4 GHz will not be as fast as 5.0 GHz, but with 5.0 GHz, you’ll need the phone to be very close to the devices connected to its hotspot.

I won’t go into a lot of details about WiFi range, if you want to know more, head over to this website. The article there is really interesting… or not, depends if you like technology or not.

Before I show you how to activate 5.0 GHz on your phone, remember that your phone has to be very close to the devices connected to it.

And before I forget to mention, not all phones support 5.0 GHz, especially old phones, but it doesn’t hurt to check.

How to Switch Hotspot to 5.0 GHz

Video: How To Activate 5.0 GHz on Androi

An easy way to do this is by first long pressing on the Hotspot icon on your notification panel.

1. long press hotspot icon

This should take you to your Hotspot’s settings. Mine looks like the image below.

2. enter hotspot settings

Tap it and tap AP Band.

3. tap AP band

Select 5.0 GHz and tap Apply

4. select 5.0GHz Band
5. tap apply

Now, turn on your Hotspot and start browsing.

Other things You Can Do

Although the things I’m about to talk about aren’t going to necessarily speed up your internet, you should also practice them for a smooth browsing experience.

  • Avoid Phone Calls: if you’re on a 4G connection, in most cases, when you get a phone call, your phone is going to revert to 3G, so even if you’re not interested in answering the phone call, your internet speed is going to slow down.
  • Do Not Multitask: when you’re using your phone’s hotspot, it’s advisable to leave the phone alone. Multitasking will slow the phone down. When this happens, the phone will find a way to take away resources from “unimportant” tasks to cover up for the loss in speed.
  • Charge the Phone: Always make sure your phone is connected and charging while you’re using it as a hotspot. You wouldn’t want to end up with a dead phone and no internet.

Conclusion

Well, over to you now. Do you think I have covered the important things that can be done in order to speed up your phone’s hotspot’s speed?

Let me know in the comment what you think. If you have more tips, please share and let me know what strategy you’ll be using to achieve unlimited speed.

For more tips and tricks like this, check out all my tutorials. I always try to make them very beginner friendly. You should also subscribe to my YouTube Channel by clicking here.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. David

    I have a Samsung A3 2016 phone, using the hotspot only gets between 5 and 10Mbs on EE I tried the Sim in a Mobile Modem, I then gott over 30Mbs. I tried to find what Bandwidth my phone uses but that info is not available in my phone’s settings, only displays broadcast Channels. Is it worth getting a new phone, i.e. Samsung A12 would that make any difference to the Hotspot speed I would get.

    1. Shaibu Ibrahim

      No, the A12 and A3 have similar specs at 300/50 Mbps on the A12 and 150/50 Mbps on the A3.

      Getting the A12 will leave you with the same feeling because you’re not always going to be use the whole 300 Mbps.

      I’ll suggest getting a 5g phone if speed is what you’re majorly interested in. The A51 5G is a really fast device and one of the cheapest you can get.

      You can read a little I wrote about it here.

  2. Gabriel Y. Martinez

    My Samsung Galaxy J7 doesn’t show a AP Band selection on hotspot configuration at all.

    1. Shaibu Ibrahim

      You have an older device, some devices made in 2016 do not have those features.

Comments are closed.