I'm the family Internet fixer. Most have bought Belkin (cos it's cheap) and had problems, so called Dad/Grandpa/Uncle. Some years ago I bought a job lot of Netgear DG834s (eBay to the rescue) and have installed five of them with consistently good results. The only failure was when favourite niece's telephone pole was struck by lightning, and I think I can forgive the Netgear for objecting to that.
Before Netgears, I went from Belkin to D-Link (a lot better), but still had problems because we were then at the limit of the range from the telephone exchange.
The advice I was given was "Draytek", and it was like chalk and cheese. A Vigor 2800G worked reliably from day 1, although the speed was only 2 meg or so. Draytek sent me some different firmware which improved the speed a fair bit (to about 5 meg). I'm still using that (now very old) Draytek wireless modem router, and if it dies I'll buy another Draytek. Up here in rural Suffolk, it connects at 8 meg and delivers a bit above 7 meg.