Researchers from Rice University have successfully demonstrated full-duplex wireless technology that could give wireless traffic a significant speed boost.

Because wireless signals are essentially transmitted in a broadcast medium, incoming and outgoing data streams actually take turns being transmitted over the same channel. This is quite different from how wired technology such as Fast Ethernet, which is full-duplex, able to send and receive data at the same time, works.

In a nutshell, full-duplex wireless, when rolled out, would double wireless network throughput.

The technology demonstrated by Rice entails repurposing MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) antenna technology to send two signals in such a way that they cancel each other out, according Computerworld. The concept is not novel, though implementing it using low-cost hardware "took time to figure out."

As reported by FierceBroadbandWireless, Ashutosh Sabharwal, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, summed it up this way: "Our solution requires minimal new hardware, both for mobile devices and for networks, which is why we've attracted the attention of just about every wireless company in the world." 

While attention is focused on its potential in 4.5G or 5G networks of the future, the technology has implications for Wi-Fi networks too. With 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi forecasted to reach up to 1 billion devices by 2015, a doubling of transmission throughput would be very welcome indeed.

For more:
- check out this article at FierceBroadbandWireless
- check out this article at Computerworld

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