Need Help Extending or Redoing Network in 3-Story Townhouse-- thoughts or ideas?

[platypi]

Hi, I'm hoping someone might have a similar situation and/or know what the best approach might be. We've got a 3 story townhouse, and I will try to describe the layout of everything and what the issues are.

Third floor: Primary desktop computer, cable modem, wireless router , TV. Printer theoretically networked.

Second floor: secondary desktop connected to wireless (VG to excellent signal strength, no noticeable delays), TV with DVR connected via coax; Bluray connected via HDMI, Roku connected via HDMI, connected to wireless network. Signal G-VG but there is lag in streaming netflix). Laptop used here, connected to wifi, signal VG

First floor: Primary TV connected by cable box. HDMI to Blu Ray player (only has ethernet port). Laptop frequently used here but signal strength is awful. It's always low, and often vanishes entirely. Maddeningly slow, so even if the Bluray had wifi, it wouldn't work well, certainly not HD streaming.

Goals:
1. Improve wireless signal coverage on 1st floor
2. Connect Blu Ray player to internet. There is a part available to add wireless, but my research shows that it is extremely expensive and those who have ordered it haven't had any luck getting it to work. If we can't find a way to establish an ethernet connection downstairs (like via powerlines) we may just get a new Bluray that has wifi, or swap with the one on the 2nd floor that has wifi, since it's not being used (the Roku does everything the player does, plus some apps it can't)
3. Avoid the following to the greatest extent possible: death, divorce, disowning of children such as myself, marathon calls or chats with tech support in India, drilling of walls, running hardwired cables throughout the house...

Issues:
No one tremendously tech savvy here. I'm not totally tech illiterate, but networking is not my strong suit. Would be major objection to messing with the third floor router and modem setup--plus that computer is the primary one so needs to be a wired connection.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions!

 

[bill001g]

So I will start with the what I recommend as a last resort when your only option is no connection and therefore any connection even if it is poor is better than nothing.

That is a wireless repeater. You likely could place one on the second floor since you get good singnal and it would repeat it to the first floor. These devices have ethernet ports for your blue ray. Sound too good to be true and it is. You at a very minimum will lose 50% of your signal and they tend to be unstable and there are compatibility issues between some brands of routers and repeaters.

So real options.

Obviously ethernet cable with AP on the end to provide wireless is the best option. You could put AP on both the lower floors or only on floor 1 depends on where the cable can get.

The other are variations of the above replacing the ethernet with poweline as you mentioned. You can use 3 powerline Ie 1 on each floor and plug ap or switches into those and they will all communicate. Powerline tend to work very well or not at all, some houses they just refuse to work in because of the house wiring. All you can do it try it and return the units if it does not work

Another option that may work for you is MoCA. It sounds as though you have coax cable in most these areas. MoCa run network over coax. This generally works very well and is very stable. The risk you take is many of the cable tv and DVR manufactures use similar methods to do their whole house DVR solution. If you are very lucky they actually use MoCA compliant devices and you can leverage this to connect your equipment. BUT if they are not using MoCA you will just interfere with each other.

edit...
I forgot one other option. You can build your own wireless repeater that gets past some of the problems. What you do is get a device that act as a client-bridge (many routers can) and hook this back to back with a AP. You would use one set of radio channels to talk between the main router and the bridge and a second to talk to the end users on the first floor. This eliminates the 50% reduction because you have 2 real radios that can run at the same time. The only issue I would see is that if you run on 2.4g and wanted to use wide channels (ie 150m or higher) you cannot get 2 radio signals to fit. There is only 60mhz of bandwidth and the wide channels use 40mhz. You would have to move to the 5g band which of course has less coverage which is what you are trying to increase in the first place.