The Unbounded Benefit of Encoder Cooperation for the $k$-user MAC

Abstract: Cooperation strategies allow communication devices to work together to improve network capacity. Consider a network consisting of a $k$-user multiple access channel (MAC) and a node that is connected to all $k$ encoders via rate-limited bidirectional links, referred to as the "cooperation facilitator" (CF). Define the cooperation benefit as the sum-capacity gain resulting from the communication between the encoders and the CF and the cooperation rate as the total rate the CF shares with the encoders. This work demonstrates the existence of a class of $k$-user MACs where the ratio of the cooperation benefit to cooperation rate tends to infinity as the cooperation rate tends to zero. Examples of channels in this class include the binary erasure MAC for $k=2$ and the $k$-user Gaussian MAC for any $k\geq 2$.