**FIRST EMAIL**/Future of FRC - Sneak Peek

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

And, I predict*, its capabilities will wow the crowd. Care to speculate?
802.11 wireless - what can you do with a 11 Mb/s data stream for example?

Keep in mind 11Mb/s would have to be shared with a number of robots. Given that 802.11b/g only has 3 non-overlapping channels (and given that most venues will be using at least one of these channels, many will use more), you're talking about having to share a single wireless channel with all the robots at an event.

There would be lots of complications with such an approach, and I hope if that's what FIRST has chosen that they've thought through them all. What's to prevent one team from stealing all the bandwidth and disabling all the other robots?

Oh, and if they do choose 802.11b/g, you'll probably never be allowed to use any kind of WiFi at a competition again! Goodbye wireless scouting networks, free WiFi for teams, etc...