A comparison of network coding and tree packing

Network coding solutions and routing solutions, namely packing distribution trees, for the problem of information multicast is compared in this paper. To enable the comparison, we develop greedy tree packing algorithms that repeatedly pack the maximum-rate distribution tree and a greedy tree packing algorithm based on Lovasz' proof to Edmonds' theorem. We then investigate the potential advantages of network coding over routing. In terms of throughput, tree packing performs comparably to network coding on the network graphs of six Internet service providers. However, network coding offers additional benefits, including fewer network resources consumed, ease of management, and robustness.