yes i got a laptop,   yes i got internet in my house but my mother don't like the idea of open a whole in the wall to pass a 25 m of  UTP Cable,  so i use my dear neighbour wifi connection at night so i don't need to move laptop away of my room; but don't work very well: he is all day/all night with emule.   As Nintendo DS don't allow Adhoc mode, the single way to connect my DS to that AP is buy a  wifi usb connector that allow me turn it to AP Mode, doing a bridge network with my pcmcia (WifiLink USB do that), (as you said, using laptop as a proxy) http://www.mayflash.com/pc/pc041/pc041.htm        But i should clarify that i open the theard to speak in general about ds wifi range, doesn't matter why, but as better wifi singnal we got, more happy we are,  (in my opinion) :PPPP   PD: sorry my bad english level,