The use of multiple description coding in networking

Consider a memoryless, loss-tolerant and delay-sensitive source, the output of which is transmitted through a packet-switched communication network. Network parameters such as congestion, route quality, link capacity etc., have a great impact on the achievable distortion at the receiver. In our previous publication (see IEEE Trans. on Inform. Theory, vol.47, no.3, p.891-903, March 2000)., we investigated the significance of using multiple description coding (MDC) in reducing the average end-to-end distortion. Also we demonstrated the value of intelligent routing in reducing distortion for single description coding. In this paper, we show that the relative improvement that is achieved by using intelligent routing is much more noticeable in systems employing MDC.