Honestly, just don’t settle for the shitty router that your service came with, get that damn thing out from behind the TV or wherever it shouldn’t be, get it up close to the ceiling somehow, and you’ll probably never want to use a fishtape even if you can.
Mesh networks are probably the solution for apartment dwellers. The routers all act as one router but are separate smaller routers that talk to each other so you can put them all around the house, and you just need to plug them into power. No mods to the apartment are required, it’s all wireless. The catch is expense, but if you buy once, and cry once, then it becomes like a piece of nice furniture that moves with you.
But again, one $40 modern router that isn’t the shitty combo unit from the ISP, keep it up high and unblocked, get enough extra Cat cable to reach where you put it, and you might be happy enough with that.
Hell, get the router out from behind the TV if that’s where you put it (everyone tries putting it there to hide it) and you might get all the signal you need.
Look into powerline, it uses your electrical lines to transfer ethernet. it doesn’t work in every house but when it does its pretty great!
Powerline is alright if you have literally no other option but I’d take wifi instead 10/10 times unless my PC was trapped inside a Faraday cage.
Powerline has much better latency (and much more consistent latency) than wifi, so it’ll give you a better experience for stuff like gaming. Depending on how exactly your house is wired and what else you have on the circuit it can have reliability problems (although if you live in a dense area wifi isn’t exactly reliable), but if your house is suitable it works very well, I used it about 5 years with no problems.
I’m currently using powerline because running an ethernet cable across the apartment seemed gaudy at best. The suggestion of a flat white cable stuck to the wall seems interesting.
I have the modem and router on a UPS because power flickers semi-regularly here. Sadly, powerline cannot go on a UPS.
I’ve been renting for the past 7 years. You can buy flat, white Ethernet cables that can be fixed to the walls with sticky clips. It’s less ugly than the round cables and while obviously not earthquake proof, the clips do a fairly good job at keeping the cable in the corner.
