In this paper, we consider the problem of maximizing the throughput of
Byzantine agreement, given that the sum capacity of all links in between nodes
in the system is finite. We have proposed a highly efficient Byzantine
agreement algorithm on values of length l>1 bits. This algorithm uses error
detecting network codes to ensure that fault-free nodes will never disagree,
and routing scheme that is adaptive to the result of error detection. Our
algorithm has a bit complexity of n(n-1)l/(n-t), which leads to a linear cost
(O(n)) per bit agreed upon, and overcomes the quadratic lower bound
(Omega(n^2)) in the literature. Such linear per bit complexity has only been
achieved in the literature by allowing a positive probability of error. Our
algorithm achieves the linear per bit complexity while guaranteeing agreement
is achieved correctly even in the worst case. We also conjecture that our
algorithm can be used to achieve agreement throughput arbitrarily close to the
agreement capacity of a network, when the sum capacity is given