Hi everyone, I've had a problem starting yesterday (at least that's
when I noticed it) where the wireless connection between my laptop and
(buffalo) router has not been reliable, and downloads have been very
slow.

When I try to ping the router, this is what happens:

PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2135.790 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1141.654 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=142.660 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.921 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=3132.532 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2132.499 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=1133.152 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=133.306 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.923 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=3132.179 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=2132.909 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=1132.991 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=132.959 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=0.944 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=3132.797 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=2132.787 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=0.895 ms

Most of the packets are transmitted fine, but the ping times fluctuate
from pretty reasonable (sub-one second) and pretty awful (over three
seconds).

Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening? I've tried
turning WPA off, putting the laptop right next to the router, and
changing the wifi channel, with no success.

Appreciate your thoughts!