1. A receiver operative in a multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) wireless communication network in which two or more MIMO streams of communication symbols are received, comprising: a first whitening joint detector comprising a pre-filter operative to suppress a first subset of the received MIMO streams as colored noise; and a primary joint detector operative to process a second subset of the MIMO streams and to output a preliminary solution obtained by minimizing a whitening joint detection metric; a second whitening joint detector operating in parallel with the first whitening joint detector, the second whitening joint detector operative to suppress the second subset of the MIMO streams as colored noise and to process the first subset of the MIMO streams; and a secondary detector operating in the vicinity of the primary joint detector preliminary solution, and operative to improve the preliminary solution by comparison to a full joint detection metric.