Slow connection on rooted droid x

[defective by design]

I used Z4 root on my droid x and downloaded the wifi tether. it is version 2.0.6. the wifi connection is very crappy. Why would this be? The fastest connection I can get is about 100kpbs. I talked to my dad who rooted his phone and downloaded the wifi tether as well. He told me he has no problems and is getting up to 500kpbs. In fact he said it was faster then his home network. The thing is I'm in San Diego, CA and he is in Buut-hump Misouri. I would think being in a large city I should have a great connection, him being in MO or the middle of now where he shouldnt have service as good. It seems my connection will truck along then just drop out, then pick up and drop. I can't figure out why this is.
It is very frustrating when trying to do things online like upload photos and such and it just drops out and I have to start all over. Anyone have any suggestions to get a better connection speed? It doesnt seem to matter where I put my phone the connection just lags. I am not in a valley or behind some big hills or anything so i'm not sure why my connection sucks so bad.
I am glad I'm not paying the extra $30 a month for this service. I would be royally pissed to pay for a service and get a crap connection like this. The whole point of getting the droid x was so I could do the wifi tether, now it seems like i may have made a poor choice. I feel like I would have been better off getting a crap phone for calls and such and just get cricket wifi adapter. Please help so I can get a decent connection on this junker.