FEC for Lower In-Order Delivery Delay in Packet Networks

Abstract: We consider use of FEC to reduce in-order delivery delay over packet erasure channels. We propose a class of streaming codes that is capacity achieving and provides a superior throughput-delay trade-off compared to block codes by introducing flexibility in where and when redundancy is placed. This flexibility results in significantly lower in-order delay for a given throughput for a wide range of network scenarios. Furthermore, a major contribution of this paper is the combination of queuing and coding theory to analyze the code's performance. Finally, we present simulation and experimental results illustrating the code's benefits.