Bounding the Coding Advantage of Combination Network Coding in Undirected Networks

The authors refer to network coding schemes in which information flows propagate along a combination network topology as Combination Network Coding (CNC). CNC and its variations are the first network coding schemes studied in the literature, and so far still represent arguably the most important class of known structures where network coding is nontrivial. This paper is to seek a thorough understanding on the advantage of CNC in undirected networks, by proving a tight bound on its potential both in improving multicast throughput (the coding advantage) and in reducing multicast cost under a linear link flow cost model (the cost advantage).