Cut-Set Bounds for Multimessage Multicast Networks with Independent Channels and Zero-Delay Edges

Abstract

We consider a communication network consisting of nodes and directed edges that connect the nodes. The network may contain cycles. The communications are slotted where the duration of each time slot is equal to the maximum propagation delay experienced by the edges. The edges with negligible delays are allowed to be operated before the other edges in each time slot. For any pair of adjacent edges $(\ell, i)$ and $(i,j)$ where $(\ell,i)$ terminates at node $i$ and $(i,j)$ originates from node $i$, we say $(\ell,i)$ incurs zero delay on $(i,j)$ if $(\ell,i)$ is operated before $(i,j)$; otherwise, we say $(\ell,i)$ incurs a unit delay on $(i,j)$. In the classical model, every edge incurs a unit delay on every adjacent edge and the cut-set bound is a well-known outer bound on the capacity region. In this paper, we investigate the multimessage multicast network (MMN) consisting of independent channels where each channel is associated with a set of edges and each edge may incur zero delay on some other edges. Our result reveals that the capacity region of the MMN with independent channels and zero-delay edges lies within the classical cut-set bound despite a violation of the unit-delay assumption.