  Parallel transmission, as defined in high-speed Ethernet standards, enables
to use less expensive optoelectronics and offers backwards compatibility with
legacy Optical Transport Network (OTN) infrastructure. However, optimal
parallel transmission does not scale to large networks, as it requires
computationally expensive multipath routing algorithms to minimize differential
delay, and thus the required buffer size, optimize traffic splitting ratio, and
ensure frame synchronization. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for
high-speed Ethernet, which we refer to as network coded parallel transmission,
capable of effective buffer management and frame synchronization without the
need for complex multipath algorithms in the OTN layer. We show that using
network coding can reduce the delay caused by packet reordering at the
receiver, thus requiring a smaller overall buffer size, while improving the
network throughput. We design the framework in full compliance with high-speed
Ethernet standards specified in IEEE802.3ba and present solutions for network
encoding, data structure of coded parallel transmission, buffer management and
decoding at the receiver side. The proposed network coded parallel transmission
framework is simple to implement and represents a potential major breakthrough
in the system design of future high-speed Ethernet.
