Startup Aims to Reinvent Wireless Communication

A small startup is challenging one of the long-held precepts in communications, that mobile devices can't transmit and receive data on one frequency at the same time. An unusual technology proposed by Kumu Networks emerges as telecom carriers ponder what's next after today's fourth-generation cellular networks to cope with a flood of new smartphone users and data demands on wireless networks.

Kumu says its technology can play an important role by effectively doubling the capacity of both cellular and Wi-Fi communications. The 20-person startup was founded by a group of Stanford University researchers who in 2011 wrote a technical paper claiming a breakthrough that made it theoretically possible to carry two-way traffic simultaneously through a given chunk of radio spectrum.