Help with getting a decent wireless connection

[Abhik262]

Hi, I have Sky Broadband which is at 16mb. The downside is i cant use it because the reception in my room is too poor. In the house there is only one telephone cable slot and so the router is far away from the computer. A temporary solution is to leave it in the middle of the walkway which, for obvious reasons is impractical. Running a cable around the house is something which i really do not want to have to do so, what options are available to improve my reception or move the router closer to my computer so that i am better able to use the internet? If possible i would like to avoid having to replace my NIC card or the router itself. Thanks in advance for any help, this problem has been bugging me for a while and i would really like to get it sorted out. Also, if it makes a difference, the computer is upstairs whereas the router is downstairs. There are hardly any electrical devices in between the path between the two devices which could interfere in the signal (things like microwaves are on the other side of the house), however there are a number of walls which could reduce signal quality. In vista, the signal strength varies between 1 bar to 4 bars, which it staying at 2 bars for much of the time and with the connection breaking up frequently. this makes downloading files a pain as i have to restart when the connection breaks up and a download manager would limit my already limited download speed. My NIC is a belking G+ and the router is the sky router (it looks like its a negear G router with white paint and a logo )Thanks again.

[MadduckUK]

homeplug

something vaguely like this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/111402

[Abhik262]

How does this work? do i like plug on end into the telephone cable and the other end into a power socket and then the second bit therefore works as a form of wireless extension cable? If so, this is exactly what i had in mind, i just had no idea what it was called.

Or, upon research, upgrading my NIC may be cheaper so would this seem to be a worthwhile buy?

http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=631616

Thanks for your help.

[MadduckUK]

no ,because your router is still 802.11G, so want take advantage of any of the funky stuff that card does

[Abhik262]

I thought this would be a good idea as i have a laptop which has an N wireless NIC and in the same room, same place i get a much faster connection. And i thought this was because of the MIMO system used in it so, in theory, if i fitted the same grade card into my computer, i would be able to experience those faster speeds. Also, im not 100% sure that the router is G. I will look it up, i only said it looks like the G router which netgear sell. Sorry if i inadvertantly suggested that it was a G router.

[Abhik262]

I took the risk and bought the EDIMAX N card and am happy to say that my connection is much better. Vista always sees it with atleast 4 bars of strength and my speed has improved from around 600kbs to 2500kbs according to speedtest.net.