3G speed is all over the place

[Theot]

I live in a very good area and always have great signal. Never had speed issues with my Fascinate but now with the X2 lately the last couple weeks my 3G signal is all over the place. I'm on my 2nd X2 because the first one felt like it was on fire when using data. Well this one did it too. The 3G radio gets really hot when using data. Except for the last few days it doesn't do it anymore, doesn't get hot at all which is good except my data speeds are terrible the majority of the time. Now its not always bad, but 90% of the time or better its less than 0.5 mbps with 3-4 bars. When its working correctly I get 1.2-1.8 mbps in the same places like at home where I'm getting 0.5 mbps or less most of the time. Wondering if the 3G radio could have burnt itself out or is it a software issue?