Suggest you try two things. First move the Netgear router away from the metal shelves to rule out interference/reflections/refractions of the wireless signal (as already suggested).

Second, when you're roaming away from your desk and you notice your wireless speed drop to ~2Mb try plugging it into the mains. If the wireless speed stays at ~2Mb then you either need to re-site the router somewhere more central within your house (not that easy an option usually ;-) ) or alternatively look at a wireless range extender (http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGX102.php and also http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGXB102.php).

A cheaper option could be to fit a high-gain antenna onto the router to see if this boosts the signal strength (http://www.netgear.com/products/busi...reless_sb.php). Expansys USA have the antenna products available from their website here http://www.expansys-usa.com/product.asp?code=122204.

Now the tricky part. If when you plugged into the mains your wireless connection speed went back up to 54Mb (or close to) then you most likely have PSP issue between the router and the client (your laptop). PSP stands for Power Save Poll and is a technique for reducing battery consumption at the client by selectively turning off the wireless radio on the laptop for a number of poll intervals. These intervals are usually quite short but in computer terms it's a long time, especially if your trying to download or browse the internet. When the client turns it's radio off it notifies the Access Point/Router of it's intent and assumes that the AP/Router will buffer all traffic meant for it until it wakes up and says I'm ready to receive again. If the AP/Router doesn't support PSP then it just keeps sending packets to the client blissfully ignorant that there's nothing there to receive it. So when the client is ready to start receiving data the first packet it gets is not the one it was expecting (each packet is essentially numbered but I won't go into this here) and tells the AP/Router which packet it was expecting. Consequently the AP/Router has to go and refetch all the packets in order to re-send them because chances are it's already flushed the ones the client wants from it's buffer.

Now, I hope this isn't your situation but there is something you can do. Find the support page for your Netgear router and download the latest firmware for it. Install it and see if this fixes the problem. If you only use your laptop at home and always dock it to recharge the battery every night then I guess you could turn off all the power saving features for the wireless network card.

However, if you do travel and use public wireless hotspots and need more than 1-2 hours operation from your laptop then I suggest you turn all the power saving features on.

I really didn't mean for this to be such a long post but I've seen this problem many times both at home and also in public wireless hotspots (even well known providers) across Europe. If you need any more help then please feel free to PM me.

David