Guaranteed Packet Delays with Network Coding

In the context of networks providing QoS guarantees, the end-to-end delay experienced by a packet is an important parameter. In this paper, we show that network coding can be used to decrease worst case end-to-end bounds when compared to a classical routing strategy. This result can be explained by the fact that network coding can cope with congestion better that classical routing due to its property to process simultaneously packets from different flows. In this paper, two network coding strategies, applied to networks providing QoS guarantees, are presented. We present an evaluation of worst case delays both in routing and coding approaches with network calculus tools. An interesting result is that network coding can improve these guaranteed end-to-end bounds even in network topologies where the throughput is not improved.