  Motivated by streaming applications with stringent delay constraints, we
consider the design of online network coding algorithms with timely delivery
guarantees. Assuming that the sender is providing the same data to multiple
receivers over independent packet erasure channels, we focus on the case of
perfect feedback and heterogeneous erasure probabilities. Based on a general
analytical framework for evaluating the decoding delay, we show that existing
ARQ schemes fail to ensure that receivers with weak channels are able to
recover from packet losses within reasonable time. To overcome this problem, we
re-define the encoding rules in order to break the chains of linear
combinations that cannot be decoded after one of the packets is lost. Our
results show that sending uncoded packets at key times ensures that all the
receivers are able to meet specific delay requirements with very high
probability.
