Very slow wirelesss when using iPhone 4S' personal hotspot for a MacBook Pro (MBP)...

Hello.

Last night, I was helping a client with his old iPhone 4S' personal hotspot as shown in http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4517 web page. It uses Verizon Wireless 3G for his 4 GB data cellular connection. We got the wireless (WPA2) connection to work fine, but it was very slow like crappy dial-up modem speeds. Is this normal? iPhone's iOS v8.1.2's top screen says 1X (is this a speed number?) and left of MBP. Updated Mac OS X 10.8.5's top screen shows an infinite(?) symbol instead of that wifi arc symbol.

Thank you in advance. 🙂