Bounds on the number of iterations for turbo-like code ensembles over the binary erasure channel

We derive simple lower bounds on the number of iterations which are required to communicate over the binary erasure channel when graph-based code ensembles are used in conjunction with an iterative message-passing decoder. These bounds refer to the asymptotic case where we let the block length tend to infinity, and the bounds apply to general ensembles of low- density parity-check (LDPC) codes, irregular repeat-accumulate (IRA) and accumulate-repeat-accumulate (ARA) codes. It is demonstrated that, under a mild condition, the number of iterations required for successful decoding scales at least like the inverse of the gap (in rate) to capacity.