We consider a three-node network where a relay node establishes a bidirectional communication between the two other nodes using a spectrally efficient decode-and-forward protocol. In the first phase we have the classical multiple-access channel where both nodes transmit a message to the relay node, which then decodes the messages. In the second phase the relay broadcasts a re-encoded composition of them based on the network coding idea. This means that each receiving node uses the same data stream to infer on its intended message. We characterize the optimal transmit strategy for the broadcast phase where either the relay node or the two other nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. Our main result shows that beamforming into the subspace spanned by the channels is always an optimal transmit strategy for the multiple-input single-output bidirectional broadcast channel. Thereby, it shows that correlation between the channels is advantageous. Moreover, this leads to a parametrization of the optimal transmit strategy which specifies the whole capacity region. In retrospect the results are intuitively clear since the single-beam transmit strategy reflects the single stream processing due to the network coding approach.
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