Strong Robustness of Randomized Rumor Spreading Protocols

Randomized rumor spreading is a classical protocol to disseminate information across a network. At SODA 2008, a quasirandom version of this protocol was proposed and competitive bounds for its runtime were proven. This prompts the question: to what extent does the quasirandom protocol inherit the second principal advantage of randomized rumor spreading, namely robustness against transmission failures? In this paper, we present a result precise up to (1 ± o(1)) factors. We limit ourselves to the network in which every two vertices are connected by a direct link. Run-times accurate to their leading constants are unknown for all other non-trivial networks. A short version of this work appeared in the proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2009). Partially supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG) via its priority program “SPP 1307: Algorithm Engineering”, grant DO 479/4-2. Work done while the author was with the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik. Supported by the Study Scholarship awarded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).