"Jonathan N. Little" wrote

| Also for folks who live in more densely packed domiciles like apartment
| buildings where SSIDs swarm like gnats...
|

And in older buildings. After plaster and lath,
before gypsum drywall, the popular method was
mortar on metal lath, especially around WW2 era.
It's basically a concrete wall with a sheet of
embedded steel.
Brick chimneys... cast iron toilet drain pipes...
multi-floor residences.... All problems that don't
exist in a modern ranch house or open floor
plan apt.

We live on 3 stories, with
the router on the first floor in a corner office.
My machine is on the second floor. I set up a
jack for laptops in the attic room. I think 100' of
cable was either $50 or $70 at Home Depot.
(HD and Lowes are much cheaper for cables and
connectors if they carry them. At Staples, Best
Buy, or a computer store they're high-tech
equipment and the mark-up on cables is crazy.
At Home Depot/Lowes they're just electrical parts.)

Of course, wiring situations vary. And many people
don't feel capable to run wires. So it *can* get
expensive. The nice thing about old houses is there
are plenty of places to snake a wire. I went across the
unfinished cellar ceiling and up beside the sewer drain/
stink pipe to reach the attic, using 10' plastic electrical
conduit that cost about $1 each and fit into each other,
end to end.