On the Delay of Network Coding over Line Networks
Abstract
We analyze a simple network where a source and a receiver are connected by a line of erasure channels of different reliabilities. Recent prior work has shown that random linear network coding can achieve the min-cut capacity and therefore the asymptotic rate is determined by the worst link of the line network. In this paper we investigate the delay for transmitting a batch of packets, which is a function of all the erasure probabilities and the number of packets in the batch. We show a monotonicity result on the delay function and derive simple expressions which characterize the expected delay behavior of line networks. Further, we use a martingale bounded differences argument to show that the actual delay is tightly concentrated around its expectation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0910.3975,
title = {On the Delay of Network Coding over Line Networks},
author = {Theodoros K. Dikaliotis and Alexandros G. Dimakis and Tracey Ho and Michelle Effros},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.3975},
year = {2009}
}