# Age of Information in Multihop Multicast Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.10455 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.10455/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 26 Dec 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Transferable Graphical MARL for Real-Time Estimation in Dynamic Wireless Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.03227/) (2024)
- [Decentralized Learning Strategies for Estimation Error Minimization with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12662/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We consider the age of information in a multihop multicast network where there is a single source node sending time-sensitive updates to nL end nodes, and L denotes the number of hops. In the first hop, the source node sends updates to n first-hop receiver nodes, and in the second hop each first-hop receiver node relays the update packets that it has received to n further users that are connected to it. This network architecture continues in further hops such that each receiver node in hop ℓ is connected to n further receiver nodes in hop ℓ+1. We study the age of information experienced by the end nodes, and in particular, its scaling as a function of n. We show that, using an earliest k transmission scheme in each hop, the age of information at the end nodes can be made a constant independent of n. In particular, the source node transmits each update packet to the earliest k1 of the n first-hop nodes, and each first-hop node that receives the update relays it to the earliest k2 out of n second-hop nodes that are connected to it and so on. We determine the optimum kℓ stopping value for each hop ℓ for arbitrary shifted exponential link delays.