Patent ID: 8068426

Claim:
A computer-implemented method in which a transmitting node performs operations comprising: determining a linear combination of packets to transmit from a transmit queue; producing said linear combination of packets; transmitting said linear combination of packets; and determining whether a packet used in said linear combination of packets is to be removed from said transmit queue, wherein when a determination is made that the packet used in said linear combination of packets is to be removed from said transmit queue then removing said packet used in said linear combination of packets from said transmit queue, and when a determination is made that the packet used in said linear combination of packets is not to be removed from said transmit queue then refraining from removing said packet used in said linear combination of packets from said transmit queue, wherein said transmit queue has a physical size bounded by a sum of a backlog of degrees of freedom between said transmitting node and all receiving nodes and wherein said size of said transmit queue is O ( 1 1 - ρ ) , wherein O is the size of the physical queue and ρ is a load factor.