Best Wi-Fi router for long range In 2023

Introduction

If you are shopping for the best WiFi router for long range service, your search ends right here. 

A long-range WiFi router is a must-have these days. Thanks to the raging pandemic, more and more people are forced to stay home. And when it comes to staying home, the router is increasingly being used for more than just watching Netflix or playing games.

We went ahead and tested several best sellers and highly recommended routers in the business, and finally came up with this list of the best WiFi routers for long range in 2021. But before we dive right in here are a few parameters that we considered when making this list.

Here are the main parameters that we have considered to finalize this list.

Wi Fi Bands

The first and foremost requirement is that the router must support a dual-band. Most of the modern good routers support at least two bands. 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz. If you are judging that 5 GHz is faster and better than 2.4 GHz, then you are both right and wrong. yes, 5 GHz is a faster connection, because the amount of data that can be transmitted is more and therefore it is better for gaming, streaming, and doing any kind of high bandwidth tasks. However, it does not have the same range as the low frequency 2.4 GHz band offers. Because the 2.4 GHz comes with a lower frequency, it can penetrate the walls and offer a greater range than 5 GHz. But on the flip side, 2.4 GHz is a very crowded bandwidth. Several electronic devices in your home are also using the same bandwidth. If you need faster access 5 GHz is what you need.

Wireless Protocol

No doubt you must have heard about wireless protocols like 802.11 and 802.11ac. ever wondered what they are and what they denote? These internet protocols tell you the underlying connectivity technology that the router used. For example, 802.11ac is a protocol that is widely used in routers and other devices. If your router is supporting both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz bands then it is likely that it is having this protocol. This protocol supports a bunch of other features. The maximum data rate that can be hypothetically achieved using this protocol is 5,400Mbps. 

If your router offers one 2.4 GHz band and two separate 5 GHz bands then it is a tri band router and most likely an AC3200 router.

You have probably never heard of beamforming. This technology is used to broadcast Wi Fi signals directly to a client than blindly broadcasting it in every possible direction. This saver power and resources and improves the overall internet accessibility 

A major feature of routers that use this technology is a maximum of eight spatial streams via several antennas attached to the router. This enhances the overall performance and device handling capacity of the router.

Then of course you also get Multi-user (Multiple input multiple output) MU-MIMO technology that helps support multiple devices without any lagging. All connected devices access the Internet at the same time and at a decent speed.

Additional features

Home routers are getting feature loaded. Thanks to the demands of the new work-from-home audience. You can now have a built-in Quality of Service (QoS) option in your router. With it a very useful feature, we feel, is the parental control option. If you have a pre-teen or a teenager at home and you are worried about his /her gaming activities or want to restrict the times of the day (or days of the week) when they can access the internet, you have to have this feature. We love some of the advanced features that block access to age-sensitive material automatically.

Some routers allow you to create a secondary network that utilizes a second SSID login and password to access the internet. Let’s say that you have a visitor at home and you want to give him access to your WiFi. But your Wi Fi router and the network has multiple devices, NAS, printers, etc. connected. Sharing your master network login credentials allows him access to all these devices. That is something that nobody wants. The second SSID eliminates that problem.

Another feature you might want to have is Link Aggregation. This allows two gigabit Ethernet LAN ports to ensure a greater throughput. There is a secondary benefit of having this as it works as a backup connection protocol.

Best WiFi router for long range: Buying Guide

Asus ROG Rapture GT-AC5300

The ASUS ROG Rapture WiFi Gaming Router is a tri band Gigabit wireless router and comes with a Quad-core CPU. The router comes with the latest 802.11ac 4×4 MU-MIMO systems for enhanced throughput (5334 Mbps). 

The maximum coverage that you can expect out of the router is 5000 sq. ft. The router also comes equipped with a VPN Fusion. This allows you to run a normal internet connection parallelly with your VPN connection. This has a direct bearing on speed-sensitive activities like gaming where you can establish a faster connection to a gaming server.

The router comes with an integrated Intrusion Prevention system powered by Trend Micro. This IPS system is a multi-stage protective layer that ensures that your gaming network remains immune to any type of external attacks and threats. This security layer will immobilize the threat before it reaches network devices.

But that is not all. The router has a few additional features as well. Primary among them is the ROG Game dashboard feature. So you get to use Game Boost, Game IPS, VPN Fusion, and most importantly WTFast Gamers Private Network. 

Pros

• Extremely fast throughput performance using the 802.11ac 4×4 MU-MIMO technology.
• 1.8GHz 64bit Quad-Core processor
• Dual USB 3.0
• VPN fusion allows you to run a normal internet connection and a VPN connection all at the same time.
• Speeds up connectivity to a gaming server for a faster gaming experience.
• Integrated ROG gaming dashboard gives you access to a range of extra services.
• Integrated Intrusion Prevention system

Cons

• A problem shared by many users seems to be that the entire traffic gets routed through the Trend servers.
  This may have some security issues.
• Dicey ASUS support may turn you off in case of serious issues.

NETGEAR Nighthawk X10 AD7200

The Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 is one of the fastest routers in the business. It utilizes the Plex Media server that ensures that your router handles bandwidth-hogging services like streaming etc. faster than most other routers in the business.

The Nighthawk X10 AD7200 uses 802.11ac and 802.11ad WiFi technology that delivers one of the smoothest 4K streaming and VR gaming experiences that you could get anywhere. Overall download speeds are excellent and game playing is super-fast thanks to the speedier connection to gaming servers. Thanks to the 4.6 Gbps speed achieved by the router. To compare that is up to three times faster than 802.11ac.

The router comes with 6 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Ports. None of your devices remain unconnected. Speaking of connecting devices 2 Gigabit LAN Ports for fast 4K streaming from your network-attached storage (NAS) device.

The router is powered by a 1.7GHz Quad-core processor. Using the Quad-stream architecture an uninterrupted wireless speed of 7.2 Gbps speed can be achieved.

With the MU-MIMO technology, the router supports simultaneous streaming to several mobile devices with a 160 MHz speed for faster access to the internet.

Pros

• Uses 802.11ac and 802.11ad Wi Fi technologies.
• 1.7GHz Quad-core processor
• 6 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Ports
• Link aggregation 2 Gigabit LAN ports for faster access to 4K streaming.
• MU-MIMO technology. 
• 6 months Amazon Drive Cloud backup storage option is provided for free.

Cons

• Setting up may require some knowledge. Not the easiest device to set up by beginners.

ASUS AC1750 WiFi Router (RT-AC66U B1)

This dual band Wi Fi router comes with 1 GHz CPU power and the 3×3 802.11ac Wi Fi technology. The maximum speed that you can achieve with this router is 1750 Mbps. 

Setting up is one of those challenges that a lot of non-technical-minded users find hard to negotiate. Some settings will require some expert help, but by and large, the router is easy to set up. You get the web-based ASUSWRT interface for fast easy set-up.

A bunch of operating systems are supported. So, anything from Windows XP and above is supported. On the other side, Linux and Mac OS X are also supported.

One of the salient features of the router is the provided smartphone router app. You can download and install it from your favorite store and monitor the statistics of your router in real-time.

There are a bunch of things that you can do with the router app including setting up the SPI intrusion detection system and enabling DoS protection to prevent attacks. Along with that AiProtection is also provided, thanks to Trend Micro. This gives the router protection against any kind of vulnerabilities that allows 

Printer sharing is easier on the ASUS AC1750 Wi Fi Router (RT-AC66U B1). The router comes with integrated USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports for easy set-up of a printer to the local network.

Remote file access is made easy with the AiCloud 2.0 support. 

With a maximum coverage area of 3000 square feet this is one of the best long range routers you can buy.

Pros

• Dual band Wi Fi router with 1 GHz CPU power.
• The maximum coverage area is 3000 square feet.
• Comes with the Asus router mobile app.
• Easy set-up using a web-based interface.
• All major operating systems are supported.
• Integrated USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports available.
• AiCloud 2.0 supports easy access to documents.
• Trend Micro powered AiProtection.

Cons

• Actual setting up takes a bit more time and effort.

TP-Link AX6000 Wi Fi 6 Router (Archer AX6000)

This Wi Fi router from the house of TP-Link is an 8-stream Wi Fi unit. It comes with 8 Gigabit LAN ports and is powered by a 1.8 GHz CPU. It supports 2.5G WAN.

This is one of the best dual band wi fi routers you can have. The speed of the device is boosted by 1024QAM. The speed across the two bands are 4804 Mbps (5GHz) and 1148 Mbps (2.4GHz). 

The router supports Alexa hands-free commands. However, you will need to connect it with an Alexa-enabled device to be able to use that option.

The router is powered by OFDMA. The basic advantage is that when compared with 802.11ac standard wireless internet routers the OFDMA powered routers offer a larger throughput. Intangible terms up to four times higher throughput in high-density situations. The result is that you can connect a large number of devices with the router at the same time.

Since we are concentrating on finding devices that have the largest coverage in a domestic situation, it is pertinent to mention what is the coverage of this router. Thanks to the 8 high-gain external antennas the router covers a large chunk of your home without any issues.

Additionally, the router incorporates BSS color technology that eliminates signal interferences from nearby devices (like other routers). Plus, beamforming and range boost ensures that the signal is stronger and travels across all corners of your home/home office.

Just to make the deal sweeter you get a free lifetime subscription to the TP-Link HomeCare feature that includes a lifetime subscription to the TP-Link next Level antivirus solution. Along with it you also get advanced parental controls and QoS.

Pros

• Dual band Wi-Fi 6 router with speed-boosting by1024QAM.
• 8 Gigabit LAN ports
• 2.5G WAN.
• 1.8 GHz CPU unit plus 2 co-processors.
• Is supported by Alexa.
• OFDMA is powered for greater throughput and a higher number of device support.
• Wider area coverage thanks to 8 high-gain external antennas.
• 2 x USB 3.0 ports in type-A and type-C
• Subscription to TP-Link HomeCare

Cons

• The online gaming experience is a bit laggy. 
• Anti-virus and other freebies can be accessed only via a cloud login.

Closing thoughts

The best WiFi router for long range in 2021 is a combination of range, price, and features. The most important features being at least dual band support, integrated security, faster CPU, and at least 802.11ac protocol.

Affordable pricing is also a requirement as budget tends to supersede all other parameters. The four routers that we have listed above tend to check most of the boxes.