why is my wifi terrible?

gistfile1.txt

client is ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS with updates, access point is an Airport Express of some sort.

$ ping -c 100 192.168.1.102       # this is the nameserver
--- 192.168.1.102 ping statistics ---
100 packets transmitted, 46 received, 54% packet loss, time 99207ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.997/299.866/2064.793/466.158 ms, pipe 3


$ ping -c 100 192.168.1.1       # this is the router
--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
100 packets transmitted, 27 received, 73% packet loss, time 99150ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 2.385/210.911/1004.575/305.747 ms, pipe 2





$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     802.11bgn  ESSID:"Decipher AEX 2"  Nickname:"rtl8191SEVA2"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.457 GHz  Access Point: 90:84:0D:D7:24:8F   
          Bit Rate=135 Mb/s   
          Retry:on   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=-46 dBm  Noise level=-120 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0


$ ip -s link show wlan0
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 70:f1:a1:28:88:78 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    RX: bytes  packets  errors  dropped overrun mcast   
    316523611  355349   0       0       0       0      
    TX: bytes  packets  errors  dropped carrier collsns 
    37972423   283077   0       0       0       0      


# lshw -c network -numeric -sanitize
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. [10EC:8172]
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. [10EC]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 10
       serial: [REMOVED]
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl819xSE driverversion=0017.0507.2010 firmware=62 ip=[REMOVED] latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=802.11bgn
       resources: irq:17 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:f2400000-f2403fff