Internet at Competitions

[DELurker]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Please show me this rule, because the rules I've read have specifically forbidden anything operating in IEEE 802.11 and no rules against 802.15.

From the 2013 competition manual...

5.5.1.4 T04
Teams are not allowed to set up their own 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz or 5GHz) wireless communication (e.g. access points or ad-hoc networks) in the venue.
A wireless hot spot created by a cellular device would be considered an access point.

Since they specifically mention 2.4GHz, I would assume that anything which looked like a 802.11 network in the 2.4GHz ISM range would be treated as one. This assumption would include both 802.15.1 and 802.15.4. Given what happened to the Einstein guy (discussed elsewhere in this thread) in 2012, I would not want to even hint at arguing with the FTA over the difference between 802.11 and 802.15.4 networks, especially since they occupy the same frequency space and can (and do) interfere with each other.