Is there anything like Homeplug pairs available on the market here?

@tigertiger
If you have a phone line in your room, you can usually split off 2-4 wires and use for ethernet. Hopefully, your phone wires are twisted pairs (but rare) as that helps drive down noise from cross chatter, induction, etc ad infinitum). Your phone actually only uses 2 strands UNLESS you're connected to ADSL and I'm too lazy to research which and how many wires are required for ADSL (but MAYBE also just 2?).

If someone's using the landline - you can expect your newly wired internet to become intermittent.

So - assuming you have electrical wire cutters/strippers, and 10-baseT (ethernet) and RJ45 (phone) crimpers and the blank plugs (and know which wires and plug ports are required for ethernet transmission), you're good to go.

On another note - if your home has a supplementary phone line in your spare room - you can optionally just pull a CAT5+ ethernet cable through the wall (you'll need a "fish" line - fancy name for long flexible wire) to pull the cable - or alternately just use the phone line to pull the cable - but those things are notoriously breakable.

Suggest you pull the ethernet cable - you can then add another wifi router (to the WAN port) et voila - double wifi radiation of you and your loved ones. (the other end of the ethernet cable should be plugged in to your primary wifi router's LAN port.

If you're really handy - you can replace the simple RJ45 jack with a dual plug jack - RJ45 AND 10baseT/ethernet. There's a variety of other hardwire options (such as RJ45 to 10baseT plug adapters) but that's too complicated for a simple home project. The plug crimpers can be bought online for the price of a cup of coffee at Salvadors (shameless plug for Sals). The 10-baseT connectors (blank plugs) are ¥3-10 for a small bag. The dual jack wall adapter (makes your rig look professional) - up to CNY 100 depending on brand. Genuine Siemens stuff will of course approach stratospheric prices, but if you own the apartment - you'll want the higher quality stuff. CAT5 cable - ¥10-¥100 is enough to wire every room in your home (minus termination points).

FYI - there's a standard on which colored wires go into which plug slot - pay attention to this...easy to find the 10BaseT plug specs thru a simple google search.

Enjoy your next weekend project. Your local electrician should have the fish to pull your ethernet cable...coupla packs of cigarettes or a beer should do the trick.

@laotou
That sounds too complicated. I tried wiring some cables back in Toronto with the RJ45 connectors but they were too sensitive for my fat fingers.

Over here I just got a longer cable and ran it around the corner from the router in one room to an Ethernet switch in the other. I now have multiple ports in the second room and since it's all wired there is no loss of signal.

I suddenly feel really old. I don't understand half the words in this thread :(

Hey, I'm in my mid 60s and I understood them. How old can you possibly be?

Plug crimpers? RJ45 connectors? CAT5+? b/g standards? I guess I've reached that age where I'd just call some guy to come set it up while I'm watching TV. Now get off my damn lawn!!

Um...yeah...just hire the network gorillas. I'm singularly unimpressed by the networking gorillas who do home installations. My AIPU connection is strung through my window (cuz the guy was too lazy to run the wire through the same hole as the cable tv). Just glad we don't have typhoons here. Loose wires, cables abound - sloppy lazy unprofessional - the norm for the south of China...or maybe the ancient apartment complex I dwell in.

@laotou,
I can relate to that. Two years ago I watched the "professional installer" from China Telecom break the RJ45 connector off one of my expensive CAT5 cables because he couldn't figure out how to press the little clip!

Also, I couldn't find anybody in the computer district who knew anything about CAT6. Why would they not know that if they're selling gigabit routers? To make it worse, so many of them don't seem to know the difference between a switch and a hub!!!

Cripes, it sounds like the local computer guys are a bunch of monkeys. OK, take note!

Thanks for the information so far. I was hoping for something simple.