Routing versus Network Coding in Erasure Networks with Broadcast and Interference Constraints

This paper determines upper and lower bounds on the order behavior (as the number of nodes increases) of throughput in an erasure network with transmit and receive-side constraints. This model is a useful abstraction of the network-layer behavior of a wireless network. An upper bound on throughput is determined for such a network, which is found to be achievable by routing if the parameter that determines the decay of channel quality with distance is greater than a critical value.