At the moment the speedtouch sits beside the laptop and there is 10m or so telephone extension cable linking the modem to the telephone line socket in an adjoining room. So I suppose I would then have a router next to the laptop instead and connecting to the telephone socket the same way.
The new laptop has the n standard and is detecting many more networks than the current g standard laptop so I may try for a wireless connection again via BT Hub so no need for a router.