On determining the alphabet size of a linear network coding

Abstract

Network coding allows each node in a network to transmit functions of the messages arrived earlier on the incoming links to the outgoing links, while a today’s router can merely route and forward a copy of a received message. Network coding has the potential to increase multicast throughput over the limit achieved by routing. This paper discusses conditions that identify the alphabet size of linear network codes in case of directed acyclic networks from the algebraic point of view.