1A universal, operational theory of unicast multi-user communication with fidelity criteria

Abstract—This is a three part paper. Optimality of source-channel separation for communication with a fidelity criterion when the channel is compound as defined in [1] and general as defined in [2] is proved in Part I. It is assumed that random codes are permitted. The word “universal ” in the title of this paper refers to the fact that the channel model is compound. The proof uses a layered black-box or a layered input-output view-point. In particular, only the end-to-end description of the channel as being capable of communicating a source to within a certain distortion level is used when proving separation. This implies that the channel model does not play any role for separation to hold as long as there is a source model. Further implications of the layered black-box view-point are discussed. Optimality of source-medium separation for multi-user commu-nication with fidelity criteria over a general, compound medium in the unicast setting is proved in Part II, thus generalizing Part I to the unicast, multi-user setting. Part III gets to an understanding of the question, “Why is a channel which is capable of communicating a source to within a certain distortion level, also capable of communicating bits at any rate less than the infimum of the rates needed to code the source to within the distortion level”: this lies at the heart of why optimality of separation for communication with a fidelity criterion holds. The perspective taken to get to this understanding is a randomized covering-packing perspective, and the proof is operational