iPad Mini iOS7 only connects to wifi when 20cm on top of router

Hi,

I have an iPad Mini which I updated today with the new iOS 7.1 software. As a lot of other people have reported, I've been having huge problems connecting to my wifi router, which is 2.4GHz. After 4+ hours of troubleshooting trial and error and research, I finally figured out the best I could do is get my iPad connected if I placed it directly on top of the router... obviously that kind of defeats the whole 'mobile' aspect of my mobile device and is not a solution. If I move just a metre away, it gets disconnected.

The most helpful post I've found on this matter is this thread - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5786102?tstart=0

After trying EVERYTHING on there multiple times (rebooting, resetting router setters, resetting iPad settings, all of them about 25+ times and alternate methods), I managed to speak to 2 Apple Support advisors who were unhelpful. They told me to take it to a local Apple Support service but in my region that does not exist! So what to do?

This is obviously an engineering problem coming from the makers of iOS 7.1, as it's defo not coming from me and is not a network problem since the iPad does connect when it's 10cm away from the router. The post linked above reaffirms this; that it comes to down to a hardware/NVRAM issue. Apple has acknowledged this as an issue and I've read it's a problem that persists across a range of iPad models. Impossibly frustrating!

Am I supposed to wait until the engineers fix the bug in the software? My warranty has ended so I'm assuming I'd need to pay for repair... which would be RIDICULOUS given that it's an actual software update that has rendered my iPad 90% useless!!

Anyone, help please!?!?