How should I connect my upstairs office network to my basement?

[timswim78]

I moved my home office from my upstairs to my basement. My Internet connection is a wireless (XOHM/Clear) modem which has to stay upstairs to get a good signal. Right now, I have an N router hooked up to the Internet. That wireless connection to my basement is pretty poor. I do not want to run CAT5 to the basement because it would be pretty horrific to make all of the needed bends.

So, I am looking for a way to get my basement computer to connect via a wired connection to my network. I guess that these are my options. What are your thoughts?
- Ethernet over powerline. Can anyone suggest a good and affordable device?
- Ethernet over Coaxial. My whole house is wired with Coax, but it is unused as we do not have cable service or even a television. I saw some devices that do this, and they run about $150, which is more than I want to spend. (I would like to spend $80-$100 or less if possible).
- Ethernet over telephone line. Is this even possible? I have an unused telephone line that runs from the upstairs room to my basement.

Thanks!

 

[spidey07]

A wireless router with a directional antenna and uses in workgroup bridge mode would be fine as well.

 

[RebateMonger]

Ethernet over telephone line. Is this even possible? I have an unused telephone line that runs from the upstairs room to my basement.

What kind of telephone line? Recent homes use CAT5 for phones. Those cables can be used by Ethernet with a connector change.

There's also HomePNA adapters that share Ethernet with phone lines. I haven't used them in nearly a decade. The early ones were 1 Mbps or 10Mbps, but I'm sure they've gotten faster. You also needed a bridge to go from Ethernet to HomePNA. XP (and later, I assume) could act as a bridge, but that bridging worked very unreliably for me. I went to a Panasonic hardware bridge, which worked, and then gave up on the whole thing.

 

[timswim78]

What kind of telephone line? Recent homes use CAT5 for phones. Those cables can be used by Ethernet with a connector change.

There's also HomePNA adapters that share Ethernet with phone lines. I haven't used them in nearly a decade. The early ones were 1 Mbps or 10Mbps, but I'm sure they've gotten faster. You also needed a bridge to go from Ethernet to HomePNA. XP (and later, I assume) could act as a bridge, but that bridging worked very unreliably for me. I went to a Panasonic hardware bridge, which worked, and then gave up on the whole thing.

It's regular old phone line (my house was built in the 1950's) and rewired at some later time.

I'm running XP, Win 7, and OS X in my office.

 

[Emulex]

1mm flatwire cat6 - it really is that easy.