Picture of the front view of the Bountiful Wifi BWRG1000 Full Power Wireless Router.

Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Review

The Bountiful WiFi long range router, model bwrg1000, transmits a full 1000 milliwatts (1 watt); the max allowable power output for an access point.

Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Summary

It features removable Tx and Rx antennas that you can upgraded to higher gain aerials for increased range.  Or you can replace them with directional sector, dish, or Yagi beam antennas. These would give miles and miles of point-to-point or point-to-multipoint network links.  Two antennas here improves range, speed, and reliability of the wireless connections.

The many front panel LED status lamps provide at-a-glance access to key router function health.  We’ve owned the fan-cooled Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 since 2008, and ran it constantly, 24 X 7, on our home network until 2013.  While several of its power adapters failed during that time, the router itself worked flawlessly.  We upgraded to Wireless AC (the bwrg1000 only supports Wireless G speeds at 54 Mbps).  But the unit remains in our computer closet, ready to take over as a backup router, should  our current one break down.

Picture of the front view of the Bountiful Wifi BWRG1000 Full Power Wireless Router.
Bountiful Wifi Full Power Wireless Router BWRG1000, Front View

Benefits, Pros, Features, and Advantages of the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

Physical Features

Lots of Front Panel Status LEDs

These include Power, System Status, WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) Status, WAN (Internet port) status, and lamps for each of the four LAN ports 1 through 4.  These LEDs glow solidly and blink, indicating the various statuses that this router can assume during startup and normal operation. See the Users Manual for a complete description of these displays.

No Front Panel Buttons

To reduce chances of unintentional yet network crippling button pushing, the bwrg1000 has no buttons or switches on the front panel.

All Connections Made on Back Panel

Rear panel ports, pictured below, include the WAN, LAN ports 1 through 4 (black), the 5-volt DC power adapter port, and the left and right antenna connectors.

The Only Button on the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router is Also on Back

The only push button, found on the unit rear, is the recessed RESET button.  So, accidentally bringing down your Wifi by pressing the wrong button, is almost impossible on the bwrg1000.





Dual Antennas

One antenna transmits (Tx) and the other receives (Rx).  The manual says that this arrangement increases wireless reliability.

Performance Features

Maximum Allowed Power Output

You can’t buy a router legally in the U.S. with more transmit power than the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000.  This router offers  a full one watt of transmitter power.

54 Mbps Max WiFi Speed

This router talks using the 802.11b (11 Mbps) and 802.11g (54 Mbps) wireless protocols.

The Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Incorporates Rugged Electronics Inside

Our copy ran almost constantly for five years without problems, except for the external power supply. We had to replace this several times But aside from taking it apart a couple times to blow out the built up dust inside, the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 router needed no other maintenance.

Broad Device Compatibility

Works with Windows, Android (Nexus, Samsung, Amazon Kindle), and iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch) mobile devices, so long as you can tolerate the slower-than-N Wi-Fi speeds here.

4-port Fast Ethernet Switch

All Ethernet ports on the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 support 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps Ethernet speeds.  No gigabit Ethernet here.

Save / Restore System Settings Option

You can save the current router settings to a file on your computer, and restore it if you later must recover from faulty changes to the router.





Remote Administration

When enabled, you can access the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 remotely from anywhere on the internet.  Disabled by default for increased security.

Basic WMM QoS

WiFi Multimedia (WMM)  Quality of Service (QoS) prioritizes network traffic among connected devices and the internet according to built-in rules.  Non adaptive QoS.  No settings for this here, except to enable or disable it.

The Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Supports Telnet 

You can use the Telnet terminal services client to access the admin functions on this router.  Legacy support.

Cool to Lukewarm Operation

The fans help keep the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 quite cool.  Needed when run at full power.

Wireless Features

Access Point Mode

Can be set as a wireless router (the default setting), or a wireless access point.  The router function provides…

  • Network address translation (NAT) between your local network and the wide area network (WAN).
  • A WAP, DHCP, and firewall, working altogether as one device.

Access point mode turns off the NAT, DHCP, and firewall functions. It provides you a good quality WAP when you already have these services running elsewhere on your local network.

Wireless Standards Supported

IEEE 802.3 WPA, 802.11 b/g only.  No 802.11n or 802.11ac.  The age of this router shows, in its lack of support for the state-of-the-art standards of 2019 and beyond.

The Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Gives Excellent Signal Coverage

The wireless network has enough range / reach to work well throughout medium and large homes when running full WiFi power.

Repeater (WDS) Mode

Has a wireless repeater. So the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 can function as a WiFi range extender in a WDS (wireless distribution system).  Functions in this mode as either a repeater or as one end of an Ethernet bridge (wireless client).





Security Features

Basic Firewall 

The built-in firewall supports port forwarding, service / application blocking, blocking by schedule, and keyword in HTTP blocking.

MAC Address Fencing

This router can block wireless devices attempting to access it, via their specific MAC addresses.  Disabled by default.

DMZ Support

You can bypass the firewall on the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 and allow direct internet access to a specific DMZ (demilitarized zone) local computer.

WEP, WPA, and WPA2 security modes for WiFi on the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

RADIUS support for WPA and WPA2.

Picture of the back of the Bountiful Wi-Fi BWRG1000 Wireless Router, showing the WAN, LAN, power, and antenna ports, as well as the reset button.
Bountiful Wi-Fi BWRG1000 Wireless Router, Rear View, showing WAN, LAN, power, and antenna ports, as well as the reset button.

Cons, Problems, Concerns, and Limitations of the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000

The Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000, though a very solid router, lacks many of today’s state-of-the-art wireless technologies such as MIMO, Wireless AC, Secured WiFi by default, and gigabit Ethernet.

Louder than a Computer

The dual fans make some noise you can hear ten to fifteen feet away.  They should have created a quieter router. Even a full power router need not use noisy, dust-attracting fans.  Bigger heat sinks instead of fans is a much better option.

No WiFi protected setup (WPS).

The Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 came out before WPS protocols grew popular in wireless access points and routers.

Fan cooled

The two small muffin fans run constantly at full speed.  Yes, they do prevent overheating. But they make for a very dusty router.  Plus, full speed fan running may not even be necessary when you choose lower power settings.   Had they used bigger heat sinks inside or along the side and / or back panels, they could have eliminated the noise and failure risks of the spinning fans.

Longer Antennas do Not Stay put

Heavy whip aerials give greater signal range.  But on the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 router, they tend to flop over if you bump the router, no matter how tight you screw them into the back panel SMA connectors.

Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router Has No 5 Ghz. Band

The Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 provides a single-band access point, operating exclusively on 2.4 Ghz.  So, given how crowded 2.4 Ghz. is getting, you may see reduced WiFi performance over time.  This is more likely the case if you run lots of Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, or microwave ovens in your space.  But the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000’s high power output coupled with some longer whip antennas, seems to overcome even the “loudest” sources of 2.4 Ghz. interference.





Open WiFi Network by Default

Initially, all wireless security protocols are disabled.  So the default wireless networks are not secure.  While this unit is capable of WPA2 authentication and encryption protocols, they must be activated manually via its web interface.

No Auto Firmware Update Detection

This router never provided automatic polling for new firmware versions.  They always had to be installed manually, and required a computer to do so.

Firmware Updates no Longer Issued

Apparently, the Bountiful WiFi company has gone out of business. So, there haven’t been any new firmware version released since 2008.

Power Supply Adapter that Comes with the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router is Not so Great

We had to replace the 5-volt, 4-amp power adapter for our Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 several times, at some expense.  Fortunately, the first time or two it failed were covered under the warranty.  The next two times, we bought replacements on eBay.  But then, we found some used laptop adapters that featured a 5-volt 6-amp output.  After soldering the Bountiful power connector from one of the failed original adapters, onto the laptop supply, we never again experienced power supply failures with the bwrg1000.

No USB Port

You cannot attach a USB hard drive or thumb drive, to share with other devices on the same wireless network.

Single WAN Support Only

So, no load balancing between different WANs (wide area networks)  on the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000.

No System Recovery Option

Should a firmware upgrade be interrupted or some other cause of firmware corruption occur, there’s no means to restore the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000 to its previous, working firmware.  Note though that while you can’t restore the firmware itself, its settings can be restored. Of course, you would have had to  save a backup of the router’s settings somewhere.

No Gigabit Ethernet Speeds on the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

The fastest this router handles data is 100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet).

No MIMO Support

In fact, No MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) at all.  The documentation makes no mention of this feature.  It uses multiple antennas, radios, and ultra-fast processors to support many users at the same time, without stutters, drop-outs, clicks, and freezes.  True.  This unit has two antennas. But only one transmitter and one receiver (one on each antenna).  So this is not true MIMO, in which each antenna functions as both a transmitting and receiving areal.

No Guest WiFi Networks Supported on the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

You can create up to four different WiFi networks on the Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000. But none of these works as a guest network which would allow clients to access the internet but not other devices on the local network.

Does not Function as a Media Server

You cannot directly connect printers or storage devices to this router directly for sharing on your local wireless network.

IPv6 Not Supported

As long as IPv4 is still widely used throughout the Internet, this router will still function.  However, widespread adoption of IPv6 will render this device obsolete and virtually useless.

Firmware versions Tested

  • 4.1.2.56.295 Jan 11 2007, 17:42:44
  • 4.1.3.15.415 Jul 25 2008, 13:55:42

Our Rating on the Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

The Bountiful WiFi  WAP (wireless access point) and router was a reasonably priced and excellent-performing wireless G network solution among the several that we’ve owned.  We were pleased with the purchase, and are sorry that the Bountiful WiFi company didn’t build upon this technology with next generations.

We really like the long wireless range and reliability, as well as the intuitive web-based admin pages. These give you precise control over tens of router settings for overall behavior and function.

The network systems pro would welcome this router’s plethora of advanced settings and options.  Yet the novice will like the built-in online help documentation and how little one must learn to set this up and tune it for best performance in his own network.

Bountiful WiFi built this router well, to satisfy beginners and experts alike.   The full power output assures that you’ll get very reliable wireless network function for wireless G devices.  So we rate this router at 94 out of 100.

Other Posts About WiFi Routers

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    3. How to Fix WiFi Router Problems and Issues
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    5. How to Install a New WiFi Wireless Router

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References for Bountiful WiFi Long Range Router

    1. Users Guide
    2. Where to buy the   Bountiful Wi-Fi bwrg1000 High Power Router

Revision History

    • 2019-05-06: Added targeting for ‘Bountiful WiFi bwrg1000’, added more tags, and deleted ad code.
    • 2017-02-04: Revised the tags list.
    • 2015-10-27: Added appropriate tags.
    • 2015-08-01: Originally published.