Have been using a crappy 'digitus' branded wifi dongle for the past year and the reception is shite.
I've used to different routers and in the end broke the case open on the dongle and attached a wire to the antenna which improved it slightly. Dongle doesn't work at all now for some reason.
Are there any decent dongles out there, I used a belkin before which was also kack. The ones in asda/tesco are priced about 40 quid which I'd never pay.

Course there aren't. They aren't meant for heavy or regular usage, if you want broadband get broadband and be done with it.

Why are you wasting time with dongles in the first place?

Use a PCMCIA card in a laptop, or a PCI card in a desktop. USB wireless dongles are ok, its the computer side that doesn't like high USB rates combined with the encryption software that seems to cause problems.

And this suprises you? LOL

I think EX0 thinks you are using a 3G dongle, but as i read it, you are using a wireless router and dongle......

Unfortunatly, if you want a good solid wireless connection you will need a wireles "N" router and dongle. You can pick them up for around £70.

B/G routers are ok but are hindered by factors such as distance/ thick walls etc... this sounds like your problem.

you can possibly pick up a 2nd hand N router off ebay, if you do , I have a N dongle you can gladly have.

just get a bitchin' ass long ethernet cable and attach it to your modem (via under carpets or wherever stupid people can't trip over it)

problem solved

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50M-CAT5e...workingCables_RL&hash=item3a5ebb16d9

Can't use wires! Have a laptop that's OK with reception.
It's not rocket science surely there's a way around this?

You can pick up a TP-link wireless N dongle with high-gain antenna from 7dayshop and Amazon for £9:
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_9&products_id=110722
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-..._6?ie=UTF8&qid=1323693735&sr=8-6

However, it won't help if the problem is down to a hardware limit (i.e. USB), software problem (e.g. antivirus) or 2.4GHz bandwidth saturation.

I have a new dongle you can buy for £20 as i use my iphone as a hotspot, maybe you should do the same

Is it one of the old style Digitus dongles you are using?

The new ones fit very snugly against the case with only a few mm sticking out, much better than the old ones, and much faster too as these are N

Ideally you need a PCMCIA as this will give you a much better signal on a laptop, but either way you're going to get a worse connection than using either wired or a PCI on a desktop purely because of the throughput and power limitations.

I used it through the IPhone for a bit - that was easy! I'm not sure if they (3) charge tethering rate, I don't want to be stung at the end of the month. I've got unlimited internet, so it'd be nice to use on laptop.

No I don't believe there are any tethering charges in the uk

Is this dongle a broadband dongle or a wifi dongle? The two are completely different things