  The interplay between timeliness and rate efficiency is investigated in
packet erasure broadcast channels with feedback. A scheduling framework is
proposed in which coding actions, as opposed to users, are scheduled to attain
desired tradeoffs between rate and age of information (AoI). This tradeoff is
formalized by an upper bound on AoI as a function of the target rate
constraints and two lower bounds: one as a function of the communication rate
and one as a function of the arrival rate. Simulation results show that (i)
coding can be beneficial in reducing AoI in the regime of moderate arrival
rates even without rate constraints and the benefit increases with the number
of users, and (ii) AoI increases with both the target rate constraint and the
arrival rate when either is kept fixed, but decreases with them when they are
set to be equal.
