METTLE: Efficient Streaming Erasure Code with Peeling Decodability
Information Theory
2026-02-11 v1 math.IT
Abstract
In this work, we solve a long-standing open problem in coding theory with broad applications in networking and systems: designing an erasure code that simultaneously satisfies three requirements: (1) high coding efficiency, (2) low coding complexity, and (3) being a streaming code (defined as one with low decoding latency). We propose METTLE (Multi-Edge Type with Touch-less Leading Edge), the first erasure code to meet all three requirements. Compared to "streaming RaptorQ" (RaptorQ configured with a small source block size to ensure a low decoding latency), METTLE is only slightly worse in coding efficiency, but 47.7 to 84.6 times faster to decode.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.10020,
title = {METTLE: Efficient Streaming Erasure Code with Peeling Decodability},
author = {Qianru Yu and Tianji Yang and Jingfan Meng and Jun Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.10020},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
31 pages