Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-information-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/3/c/i/solution

For , use repeat-until-success coding over an erasure channel: delete every erasure symbol from the received sequence and retain the non-erased bits in order. Each message bit contributes a string of erasures followed by exactly one correct non-erased copy. The channel encoder advances to the next bit only after this successful copy, so the retained bits are precisely . Hence
Indeed, , so each stage and the finite collection of stages terminate almost surely. The protocol uses channel feedback: Alice must know whether an erasure occurred before deciding whether to repeat. This feedback is implicit in the stated algorithm and is not counted as a forward channel use.
At , no stage ever finishes, so there is no terminating zero-error decoder for arbitrary messages. This endpoint is excluded from the operational claim above.

New to topics? Read the docs here!