Crappy wireless networks

It’s absolutely beyond me why the physical location of my laptop within the wireless network coverage should matter as to whether or not it can connect.

I don’t know why I bother trying in certain areas anymore. It seems as though I must be in the room with the wireless point before my laptop will actually register the WEP encryption key and “connect,” regardless of the fact that I have a “full signal” in any of the adjoining rooms.

Once I connect, of course, I can wander around the network reasonably freely and still maintain a connection. But if I’m disconnected because of a flutter (this happens often), I have to wander back into the main lab before I can get back online.

Why, in the name of all technology, should this matter? There is absolutely no difference, electronically speaking, between the areas where I can and cannot connect.

Also, weirdly enough, the wireless coverage area gets bigger when fewer people are online. Is that normal?