New proposals being developed by a Melbourne research centre could extend the life of batteries in mobile wireless devices and provide carriers with the capacity to deliver higher bit-rates to new handsets.

The latter proposal could provide some impetus to the stalled promise of 3G networks, although researcher John Papandriopoulos says the new concepts have wider applications.

"3G is old-hat if you're in research. Industry follows us in a five to ten year lag, so what we're doing here will give the industry an insight into what will happen in the future," he said.

"There's a lot of unexplored territory in 3G, but it's just a standard and an access method, our stuff relates to wireless networks as a whole," he added.

The improvement in battery life could be achieved by using smarter power control algorithms. The new techniques may also allow carriers to allocate different bit-rates to different users "on the fly".

Voice calls, for example, don't require as high a bit-rate as mobile Internet connections or video conferencing. Papandriopoulos's research allows carriers to divide users into different groups and assign bandwidth to them dynamically as their needs change.

"We've developed an algorithm that enables carriers to meet everyone's quality of service requirements," he said.

Papandriopoulos won the prize for the top graduating student across all faculties at RMIT in 2001 before accepting a PhD position at the Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN). He currently receives state and federal government scholarships.

CUBIN was opened at Melbourne University in December 2000 and focuses its research on super networks - technology that's still on the drawing board. They receive substantial funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Papandriopoulos and his supervisors have written an internationally acclaimed paper based on his research, which has been selected for presentation to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in May.

The IEEE comprises around 377,000 members. They pump out 30 percent of all literature in electrical engineering, computers and other technologies, and hold over 900 standards, including the 802.11 wireless standards in use today.

The Institute hosts conferences and workshops around the world that serve as a meeting hub for researchers to collaborate and present their ideas to the research community. Papandriopoulos will present the CUBIN paper at the IEEE International Conference on Communications in Alaska.

Although the ideas sound simple, the theory behind them is very complicated. Walking through CUBIN there are whiteboards everywhere covered from top to bottom in mathematical equations and proofs so complicated that they look like ancient hieroglyphics.

"Yes, these systems are bloody complex." Papandriopoulos laughed.

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