On Rateless Coding over Fading Channels with Delay Constraints

We explore the use of rateless coding for communication over fading channels with delay constraints. Both quasi-static fading and block-fading channels are considered. When only the receiver has channel information, we show there exist rateless codes that are both reliable and efficient for every channel realization of such channels. We then apply these codes to a wireless streaming application with a sequence of playback deadlines. Rateless strategies demonstrate benefits in terms of throughput and outage probability compared to fixed-rate schemes