Cooperative Content Distribution Using Information Droplets

In this paper, we introduce the erasure-coding scheme of DropletX, a proposed protocol for efficient content distribution in a peer-to-peer network. The file to be distributed is encoded into "information droplets" using a linear code with random coefficients drawn from a finite field. The performance of this random linear code is analyzed and compared with that of LT codes. DropletX\´s random linear code has significant advantages in terms of lower transmission overhead and peers with higher potential of generating innovative droplets, but significantly greater decoding complexity. Strategies such as pre-computing droplets and incremental decoding are used in DropletX to lower or to distribute the encoding and decoding costs