Home Networking

Hi.

I have an issue where existing solutions aren't great. I am in a 3 floor townhouse (basement/main/upper) in a shared building with several other units. The construction quality of this place... isn't great.

For reasons I can not determine, wifi upstairs sucks. Having an AP on the main floor serves main and basement just fine. But it's one bar or less upstairs. For all clients I have tried up there. If I drag a 150 foot cable up the stairs and test the same AP upstairs, life is good for clients on that floor but main and basement become hot garbage. For whatever reason, there seems to be major interference between the floors and I have zero idea why.

MOCA won't work because the coax to each floor is independent and not bonded. The ISP confirmed this when they had to set the unit up and we are forced to have the internet come in on the main floor.

Powerline ethernet isn't great because shared unit and old lines.

So that leaves me with running CAT6. But since its a rental, I can't start drilling and cutting holes.

Thankfully, there is a convenient cold air return duct that runs from main floor to upstairs. I want to run a cable up that to a switch I can use for distribution.

However, I don't know what tools or processes I need to do so. Some people suggest fish tape, some magnetic cable feeders, some all sorts of things.

What do I need to rent or buy in order to accomplish this? I have a 500 foot coil of solid cat 6 and the appropriate crimping tools and everything, I am just trying to learn what I need to actually feed things around easily.

Any suggestions/tips would be great.