Quote:
Originally Posted by philso
This is also true. The data rates could then much higher than what you could achieve with WiFi. It would also take a lot of work to set up properly. The type of equipment used to create a such network is not typically meant to be moved around and I suspect that after some time, some of the connections would become flaky and teams would complain loudly here.
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Considering we move the actual electricity in the pits over and over I fail to see how this is any worse.
In point of fact you need a managed switch or switches with adequate ports. It does not need to be faster than 10Mb. Maybe VLAN everyone from each other. Get a load balancer if you can or make one. We already move the load balancer and switches in the Scorpion cases with the field (over and over). Maybe it needs a UPS like the Scorpion case or maybe not.
Then we just need transit to plug into which from the perspective of the field crew is no different than what they and the streaming folks need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
Because when the field doesn't work nobody is going to come to you, they'll go to the FTA and then the FTA will have to spend an hour of their time hunting down your stupid wifi network while listening to people blame them/NI/Cisco.
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True but long before that happens the field crew should see this if they are paying attention to the gear they have. Plus when I work a field I bring my own gear and put it around.
They are still causing an impact and it shouldn't be going on: otherwise they'll see me wandering around like a hunting dog fox hunting them. I used to provide engineering work to a WiFi security company so I won't be easy to shake.
I have seen FTAs so busy they don't have time to deal with this. The issue with not stepping on it is that the more people do it the less they perceive the consequence and clearly real risks to all of FIRST exist.
On a different note:
I noticed last year that FIRST started off with a single channel on each radio effectively limiting each robot. This limitation did not matter because the load balancer gave each robot less than that for bandwidth on the field side anyway. As the 'christmas tree' issues continued I noticed FIRST started using both channels again on the premise that would resolve this issue (the idea apparently being that at power-up the D-Links were flooding the available channel and then failing without channel bonding available).
FIRST must realize at this point that, just like 2.4GHz WiFi, the days of using 5GHz WiFi like this are limited. Between the number of access points and client network cards from a vast array of manufacturers there are far too many permutations between the teams, the venues and the spectators to patrol away all the risks. At this point I've yet to see an example of the field WiFi security not seeing 2.4GHz spectrum filled with far too many sources of interference at a given venue. Sooner or later the 5GHz spectrum which by default is depended upon will look just like that. At some point FIRST will start to encounter situations where infrastructure wireless systems from nearby sources are using 4 channels or even more for reasons that FIRST has no control over and there just are not enough channels as the number of fields at use at one time increases. I figure FIRST can expect reasonable compliance from teams. Maybe some compliance from the venues. I think it is going to be *very* difficult to control non-aligned spectators. Probably impossible to control nearby infrastructure wireless users. That was the reason I proposed sitting on radio frequencies that were easier to patrol and harder for every 'joe blow' to just wander into.
I would hate to see a situation where some unsuspecting person brings in a device that manages to impact the field access for all or some robots at a single event and cause a problem difficult to reproduce elsewhere. I am not confident at all that such a circumstance will be caught in a way that does not impact team rankings (even if for a short while).