Can anyone tell me if this affects download speeds?

[cabernet]

So Im using Comcast Cable internet, the fastest service that I know of, I heard from others that it goes a good 1 mbps speed and I use a wireless router linksys and I have a wireless-G linksys with speedbooster adapter for my desktop. now the router is in my brother's room which is about 30-40 feet away not adding a ceiling and a wall or two in the way, does this affect my download speeds? I am getting seriously pissed off at the rates of my downloads, friggin' 17kbps is probably one of the lower speeds I get and its not like that all the time but it is frequent, then on average I get speeds of the low 100s to the low 200s, I occasionally get speeds of the high 200s-low 300s and I rarley get speeds of 500-600kbps and when I do its only for a few seconds. the damned comcast cable guy (who I by now noticed was a bad person to trust) told me distance wouldn't affect the speed, so before I call another cable guy over I just want to make sure if getting the router closer would help or not.

 

[The_Other_One]

Distance WILL affect speed. Besides signal quality and all, lower speeds have longer ranges. Now as for your problem, I don't think it's really a distance issue. While distance can affect performance, I suspect it's something else... Faulty settings, interference or perhaps failing hardware some sort. If possible, try using wireless right by the router, or moving the router to see if it affects the performance. I know the performance on dad's router is much lower than the Buffalo router I have in my apartment.

 

[Geoff]

Do you mean 1MBps actual download speed? Because there are several cable connections which have download speeds of 10Mbps+.

As TOO said, distance will decrease the network speed, although it should still be more then enough for your internet connection. Now where are you downloading from when you only get around 17KBps? Is it the same place as when you get 500KBps, just at a different time?

I would run an internet speed test such as found here: www.speedtest.net, to actually check your download and upload rates.