Generalized Simple Streaming Codes from MDS Codes

Abstract: Streaming codes represent a packet-level FEC scheme for achieving reliable, low-latency communication. In the literature on streaming codes, the commonly-assumed Gilbert-Elliott channel model, is replaced by a more tractable, delay-constrained, sliding-window (DCSW) channel model that can introduce either random or burst erasures. The known streaming codes that are rate optimal over the DCSW channel model are constructed by diagonally embedding a scalar block code across successive packets. These code constructions have field size that is quadratic in the delay parameter $\tau$ and have a somewhat complex structure with an involved decoding procedure. This led to the introduction of simple streaming (SS) codes in which diagonal embedding is replaced by staggered-diagonal embedding (SDE). The SDE approach reduces the impact of a burst of erasures and makes it possible to construct near-rate-optimal streaming codes using Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) code having linear field size. The present paper takes this development one step further, by retaining the staggered-diagonal feature, but permitting the placement of more than one code symbol from a given scalar codeword within each packet. These generalized, simple streaming codes allow us to improve upon the rate of SS codes, while retaining the simplicity of working with MDS codes. We characterize the maximum code rate of streaming codes under a constraint on the number of contiguous packets over which symbols of the underlying scalar code are dispersed. Such a constraint leads to simplified code construction and reduced-complexity decoding.