Network Coding: A Historical Perspective

Ten years ago, Ahlswede, Cai, Li, and Yeung refuted the folklore that information can be regarded as a commodity in network communication by means of an example now known as the butterfly network. The concept of network coding was formulated, and the fundamental max-flow-min-cut theorem for information flow was established. Since then, the work has generated much interest among many different research communities in engineering, mathematics, and natural science. This paper gives a historical account of the developments that led to this seminal work in network coding.