In-Packet Network Coding for Effective Packet Wash and Packet Enrichment

Packets could be dropped completely in the current Internet if there is not enough buffer in the routers due to network congestion or packet error happens during the transmission. This practice causes re-transmissions of the packets under the reliable transmission protocols, which in-turn produces unwanted delay , reduces throughput, and wastes network resources. Recently, a new network service called Qualitative Communication suggests to avoid entire packet dropping, instead breaking the packet into smaller logical units (chunks). The network nodes (e.g. routers) could perform packet scrubbing on the packet with the granularity of chunks, such operation is named as Packet Wash. In this paper, we propose to apply random linear network coding on the chunks of the packet payload to enable the packet wash and packet enrichment in the network. The benefits of utilizing such packetization are discussed in the paper.