The Information Velocity of Packet-Erasure Links

What is the maximal speed—the information velocity—at which information can propagate reliably in a network through a cascade of links? 
Information theory tells us what is the maximal rate of reliable communications through a small number of such links when delay is not important. However, if we want to communicate in real time, answering this question becomes much more challenging. In fact, even for the simple case of transmitting a single bit over a tandem of links, where each flips its input independently (across time & links), an answer was given only very recently.
In this talk, I will present some recent results for this problem for packet-based links with ACK signals. In particular, I will derive the information velocity for a causally arriving stream of packets, and determine the arrive-failure exponential decay rate below the information velocity.

No prior knowledge of information theory or queueing theory will be assumed.
Joint work with Elad Domanovitz & Tal Philosof.


Bio: Anatoly Khina is a faculty member in the School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, from which he holds B.Sc. (2006), M.Sc. (2010), and Ph.D. (2016) degrees, all in Electrical Engineering. Parallel to his studies, he has worked as an engineer in various roles focused on algorithms, software and hardware R&D. He was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, from 2015 to 2018, and a Research Fellow at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, during the spring of 2018. His research interests include Information Theory, Control Theory, Signal Processing and Statistics.