wireless internet at home - poor connection

[PotKettleBlack]

can anyone advise a not very techinical person (ie me) please?

I have wireless broadband at home. Connection is fine when I am in the living room where the router is, but rubbish in the study upstairs where I need to work on the laptop. I only have one phone point coming into the house, in the living room obviously.

What do I need to buy to sort it out?

I looked at boosters but they seem v expensive. I don't mind using a (long!) cable to connect router and laptop for this purpose - but what exactly do I need to look for, I don't know what they're called!

As a first quick test try changing the channel of your wireless network. You should be able to change that via the config bit of the routers admin web site and it's a number between 1 and 11 (I think it's 11).

If a neighbour is on the same channel then that can affect the range you get as the signals interfere with each other.

ok, I will give that a go, thanks. there are 7 other network connections listed as well as my own so that could be quite likely that a neighbour's one is affecting mine. otherwise I will invest in an extra long ethernet cable (finally remembered what it's called - doh!)

There is a program that will tell you what channels other routers in the area are using.. I believe it's called Inssider. Other things you can try are fiddling with the aerials on the router and repositioning the router. metal objects between the router and the laptop, such as steel joists, could be blocking the signal.

If nothing works and you just can't get a good signal, you can run network signals over power lines so you don't have to run ethernet cable through the house. Google for homeplug adapters.

We had this problem. Our provider is Sky, I was all set to change back to BT but when we called Sky they talked DH through changing channels and we now have great coverage throughout the whole house.