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Thread: Is WIFI full or half duplex?

  1. #1
    Ultimate Member
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    Is WIFI full or half duplex?

    Curious as to wether or not WIFI (801.11a/b/g) operates at full duplex or half duplex? If it is half duplex, do you think there will be a new standard anytime in the near future to make it full duplex?

  2. #2
    Senior Member CompGeek01's Avatar
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    I'm pretty sure it's full-duplex, but I'm not sure because the standard doesn't even seem to mention it. Next major revision seems to be 802.11n so look forward to that I suppose, if it matters a lot .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11
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  3. #3
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    Half duplex. You can't do full duplex with one radio. ALL current SOHO wireless devices use one radio. Even with multiple radio's you'd still need one each (transmit/receive) for each wireless client. So, knowing that, wireless will be half duplex for the foreseeable future. What you may see in the future is one or more radios doing load balancing, then from software dedicated bandwidth for up and downstream traffic could be managed. That's about as close as you can get though I am sure there are much smarter people than me trying to figure out a way to do it.

    Bottom line is, current hardware and near furture wireless gear is and will be half duplex by the nature of the technology. The radio can only communicate with one client at a time and only in one direction.

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