In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 4 Nov 2020 12:10:30 -0800 (PST), TimR
wrote:

I need better internet in my basement because work forces me to work from home half time. I have spotty wifi at one end but really need to work at the other.

So, the quick and dirty way is to buy a premade "patch cord" from the big box, go out a window on the ground floor where my cable router is,

If your router is on the ground floor and you're headed for the
basement, why not drill a hole in the floor above the right spot in the
basement.

If there's carpet, it will close in around the wire and you don't need
any kind of plate. Even if there is no carpet.

I've done that a couple** times and it works well. Though it's easy to
miss a closet or a thick wall, or a setback or lots of things and
misjudge where the hole will come out. I spend time checking and
recheckeing and measureing and rechecking so I didn't make a blunder.

**Four times if you count the two holes I drilled in the second floor
above the overhang I have, so the exit was outside, one of those times
to bring in the fiberoptic to the second floor. And two other times
with co-ax starting in a corner of the bedroom closet, coming out just
at the end of bookshelves in the living room, and continuing to the
basement, coming out in the corner. From there to a tv there, and also
above the ceiling (snaking that was difficult) to the laundry room/shop
(where I had a tv) and there up through the bottom plate of the kitchen
wall to a tv there. (I guess that one was drilled from above, to be sure
I knew where the kitchen wall was. )

You can drill up from the basement too, if you figure out where to
drill.


Or you can just go across the floor and down the steps.


and drill a hole in the concrete block wall to get it in the basement.
The local stores have half inch masonry bits - can I get the connector
through a half inch hole? And why does a premade CAT 6 patch cable cost
less than bulk cable in 5e or 6, even without connectors? I'll do that
if I have to.

But I'd rather do it right, which is to go up into the attic and back down in the basement. How in the heck do I fish a wire into the basement? This is not obvious. But I know some of you do it routinely.