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1. Upgrade routers and wireless network adapters to (interim) 802.11n. Ever since January 2004, when the IEEE announced that it had formed a task group to develop a new flavor of the 802.11 standard for wireless local-area networks -- 802.11n -- customers have been demanding to buy the new hardware. Why? Even though the standard is not due for final approval until July 2007, it promises to deliver far greater range and throughput -- up to 50 times greater than b-standard, and 10 times greater than the a- or g-standard. Of course all interim n implementations are backward-compatible with some or all of the current flavors of 802.11 -- but if you introduce an a-, b- or g-standard client into an n-standard network, your hot new n-standard router will slow down. So upgrade wireless adapters and routers at the same time.

2. Move the router off the floor and keep it as far as possible from walls and metal objects. As we mentioned earlier, metal, walls and floors wreak havoc with your router's wireless signal. The more of these obstacles your router needs to punch through to reach your notebook, the worse the interference, and the slower your connection will be.

3. Place your router (or access point) in a central location in the office. If your wireless router is at one end of the office (or your home), the signal will have farther to go to reach the other end. Using a central spot splits the difference.

4. Upgrade your router's antenna. Most routers come with an omni-directional antenna --meaning that it broadcasts and receives in all directions with equal efficiency. If you don't know where your receiving notebooks will be, or if they are indeed scattered in a random 360-degree pattern, omni-directional is fine. However, if (as is most often the case) your router is near an outside wall, with most of the network computers in a 180-degree pattern in one direction only (that is, toward the opposite outside wall), you are wasting half of the router's signal. If you upgrade to a hi-gain directional antenna that focuses the wireless signals in only one direction, you can maximize the efficiency of the system by aiming the signal in the direction you need it.

5. Upgrade the antenna for your notebook’s wireless network adapter. Wireless network signals must be received and sent reliably by your remote computer. Sometimes, even if your router is broadcasting effectively, your computer can't send a strong signal back. Most notebook wireless adapters use an omni-directional antenna. You can improve reception considerably by replacing your laptop's PC card-based wireless network adapter with a high-gain, low-cost, range-boosting adapter with an external antenna.