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Streaming codes eliminate the queueing delay and are an appealing candidate for low latency communications. This work studies the tradeoff between error probability p_e and decoding deadline ∆ of infinite-memory random linear streaming codes (RLSCs) over i.i.d. symbol erasure channels (SECs). The contributions include (i) Proving pe(∆) ∼ ρ∆^{−1.5}e^{−η∆}. The asymptotic power term ∆^{−1.5} of RLSCs is a strict improvement over the ∆^{−0.5} term of random linear block codes; (ii) Deriving a pair of upper and lower bounds on the asymptotic constant ρ, which are tight (i.e., identical) for one specific class of SECs; (iii) For any c > 1 and any decoding deadline ∆, the c-optimal memory length α^*_c (∆) is defined as the minimal memory length α needed for the resulting pe to be within a factor of c of the best possible p^*_e under any α, an important piece of information for practical implementation. This work studies and derives new properties of α^*_c (∆) based on the newly developed asymptotics. 

Streaming codes take a string of source symbols as input and output a string of coded symbols in real time, which effectively eliminate the queueing delay and are regarded as a promising scheme for low latency communications. Aiming at quantifying the fundamental latency performance of random linear streaming codes (RLSCs) over i.i.d. symbol erasure channels, this work derives the exact error probability under, simultaneously, the finite memory length and finite decoding deadline constraints. The result is then used to examine the tradeoff among memory length (complexity), decoding deadline (delay), and error probability (reliability) of RLSCs for the first time in the literature. Two critical observations are made: (i) Too much memory can adversely impact the performance under a finite decoding deadline constraint, a surprising finding not captured by the traditional wisdom that large memory length monotonically improves the performance in the asymptotic regime; (ii) The end-to-end delay of the RLSC is roughly 50% of that of the MDS block code when under identical code rate and error probability requirements. This implies that switching from block codes to RLSCs not only eliminates the queueing delay (thus 50%) but also has little negative impact on the error probability.