A thought: in most houses, two phone lines are run -- if they're only using one, is there a way to use the second one as the network? I think the only problems are (a) that you'll have to make sure that all the phones in the house are using the two-wire method of connecting, and if not, their are stubs that you can put between the phone and the wall jack, and ( that you will have to make sure the second two wires are disconnected at the phone hub (wherever it is that it's connected to the phone service -- I know this, because at least once in my life, I had to get the second line connected, and they had to come out and physically connect it). I know this is good enough at least for DSL speeds.