in the art will know of other factors that can be used to determine the optimum route to a destination as well as intermediary units to be used in the optimum route in addition since the network is radio based frus may disappear or otherwise become unavailable for a number of reasons including for example power failure thus rendering one or more entries in routing tables obsolete when an fru becomes unavailable the routing algorithm attempts to re route traffic around the unavailable fru moreover each fru also collects routing and device information from mru s that are available within its coverage area as will be further described below the mru s can also be used for forwarding traffic hence such information can be used by the routing algorithm of the fru to generate an optimum route based on the teachings and disclosure provided herein it can be seen that when directed to do so the routing algorithm associated with each fru continuously selects the optimum route based on both user application and traffic requirements unlike conventional wireless technologies that utilize worst case rf design principles the present invention as described above is capable of optimizing its own performance in response to prevailing conditions for example an fru may have initially selected the route with the best link quality in order to maximize success of the transmission however if other links appear with a better quality then the fru has the option to switch to those other links even in the middle of packet transfers another advantage of the present invention is.