Has he updated the drivers? I've found that I can have "excellent" signal on my laptop throughout my house, but the actual connection speed isn't always at full tilt. It SHOULD connect at 54mbps... half the time it's only 24... or even less. And it's considerably slower than anything connected to the ethernet, although the actual speeds suggest that it shouldn't be.
I'd suggest having him go to a hotspot elsewhere (Borders?) and testing the speed there to see if it's the laptop or his network, although it does sound like something with the laptop.