What is the range of my wifi tethering network? My Samsung Galaxy Y (GT-S5360L) can run a wifi tethering network at 32 dBm, according to iwconfig. This is almost 2 watts. Is this reading accurate, (my battery is 1200mAh, 5v, or 6 watt hours, so it seems sort of fishy, but it does drain my battery really fast when I run it), and if it is, (assuming nothing blocking the signal) what is the range of the network in meters?
32 dBm equates to 1584.89mW according to this calculator:
http://www.radiolabs.com/stations/wifi_calc.html
Assuming a 12 DBi Antenna Gain from the comments above, that gives us 44 dB of antenna power.
The signal loss for 2400 MHz/Km is 100.03dB, citing the same site.

At the assumed 44dB of power, we'll round and say .044Km which is ~144 feet.
Since throughput is inversely related, You're going to have a pretty poor download speed at 144 feet, barring there's nothing between the phone and the computer, on a clear day.

This is half guesswork, but hopefully it helps.