Wow man, you don't have an easy fix. I don't know what your budget is but I will tell you what I run in my house:
- Cisco PIX 501
- Cisco 2912 switch
- Cisco 340 Aironet AP (yeah the old VxWorks one, I will replace with at least a 350)
- 2 X 900Mhz cordless phones (pretty hard to find new anymore)

It all came off ebay for around $600 except the phones which I have had for years. It has been running for years without any problems, I can recommend the setup to anyone who is willing to put a little effort into configuration.

If this is too much $ swapping out the phones is a good start, replace the router with a Linksys, lock down a channel on the AP and stop broadcasting the SSID incase your neighbors computers are trying to associate, let their phone do the hopping.

Oh yeah, good luck!

FWIW: I've only used Linksys routers for my personal use and my current one is a WRT54G, which I have in the garage. The garage is separated from the house with walls made of reinforced concrete (concrete with lots of metal rods in it, which, one would think, is probably an inhibitor to wireless connections). I recently switched the house phones to 5.8GHz cordless units, except for the garage, in which I still use a 2.4GHz unit (and it gets a lot of use). Even when all the cordless phones where 2.4GHz I didn't have problems with dropped signals (obviously, with the 5.8GHz units its not a problem either). I'm not sure that one datum point will help you, but I'd definitely get another Linksys(Cisco) unit again if I needed to. Good Luck!

w1r3sp33d,
Turning off the SSID broadcast is a bad idea. If I turn off the SSID broadcast, none of the clients will connect to the router anymore because Microsoft in its infinite wisdom handicapped the WZC. Here's the gist of the problem. If you turn off the SSID broadcast, configure the client to connect the SSID by setting a connection to the SSID, and then try to connect while there aren't any unsecured APs in the area, it will connect just fine. But... throw in an unsecured AP (many of which exist around our apartment), and the client will connect to the unsecured AP rather than the AP that you configured it to connect to. Think I'm kidding? Read this. Pay special attention to the "This behavior is by design" line. They also indicate the reason that they added this "design feature". It's because Microsoft feels that it is a poor security measure, so it should not be used. This made me very mad at Microsoft since it adds a security hole. If you connect to an access point with the SSID broadcast turned off while on a machine running Windows XP and you are away from other APs, someone can hijack your connection by just running an unsecured AP near your machine. This would allow them to inspect your traffic if they set it up that way. It would also give them access to your network neighborhood and any unsecured files that you have. Sounds like a winner design idea by Microsoft.</rant>

As for the setup, yeah... that's just a bit steep for me. I'm really fretting over the idea of spending upwards of $100+ on a router when I just dropped $80 on the one that is giving me the fritz.


aeinstein,
I've heard nothing but rave reviews of the WRT54GS and the WRT54GL (which I understand are basically identical). As a fan of Linux, I love that it runs Linux and can be upgraded and have features added using third-party software.


There are a few routers that I am looking at and wanted to know if you guys had any praises or curses to share about them. I've heard really good things about the Belkin Pre-N router but have no experience with Belkin products, so I don't know what to base the opinions on. I'm mainly leaning towards Linksys (since they were my first router love) and am considering the WRT54GS(L), the WRT54GX2, and the WRT54GX. What do you guys think?

that's not true. I have a wifi network with SSID not broadcasted. all laptops are configured by me before I give them out to employees, and everything works fine.

FWIW, I have 2.4Ghz phone in my home and a WRT54G. no problems. Also, I do not broadcast SSID and have no experienced the problem you mention. They are on opposite sides of the channel spectrum.

Next solution.. For god sakes man, dump the dlink.

You could also go with 802.11N and step on everyone elses phone calls.

good idea!

that dlink does suck. my cousin has it

get a linksys - i have 3 and highly recommend
also the phones shouldnt be that bad, my phoneis next to my wifi router and it works fine

the reason it might randpmly reboot/drop is i have noticeed if you are using DCHP and your lease is gettong renewed

and you dont need the ssid - what you do is go into control panel -> network connections

then right click and do properties on wifi card
under qireless networks tab click add and type in the key yourself