Curious about Wifi signal reported by AirPort Utility and iPhone

I have an airport extreme (the non-gigabit version) and am running a MBP and an iPhone over the wireless, as well as some hardwired equipment. I was troubleshooting something else and clicked on the wireless clients portion of the utility and had a question about the signal the utility reported.
It shows some negative numbers for the MBP for signal (-36) and noise (-96), and a rate of 130 (it is running n-based) and the iPhone is reporting (49) signal (0) noise and (27) rate.
So can someone tell me what those numbers mean? I am wondering if I changed my setup I could get the iPhone's speed improved, or if that is as good as it's goign to get.

I'm not sure why different utilities report signal & noise values differently, but typically they are reported as negative numbers.
To make some sense out of this, you need to understand that what is really important is the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and how these numbers are used to calculate it.
SNR is the signal level (in dBm) minus the noise level (in dBm). In your example, a signal level of -36dBm and a noise level of -96dBm yields a SNR of 60dB, an excellent value for wireless LANs.
The SNR, as measured from your MacBook Pro, decreases as the range to the base station increases because of applicable free space loss. Also an increase in RF interference from microwave ovens and cordless phones, which increases the noise level, also decreases SNR.
SNR Guideline
o 40dB+ SNR = Excellent signal
o 25dB to 40dB SNR = Very good signal
o 15dB to 25dB SNR = Low signal
o 10dB to 15dB SNR = Very low signal
o 5dB to 10dB SNR = No signal
Any location, where the SNR is 20dB+, you should be getting reasonable performance from your AirPort.

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