A method for network coding using a near-maximum distance separable linear network code includes generating a message matrix where each column of the message matrix corresponds to one of K message packets and each element in a column of the message matrix corresponds to one of the symbols of the corresponding message packet. The method also includes generating a network code matrix to map the K message packets to N encoded packets, where any combination of K+1 columns of the network code contains at least K columns that are linearly independent. Further, the method includes multiplying the message matrix by the network code matrix to generate a transmission matrix, where each column of the transmission matrix corresponds to an encoded packet for wireless transmission.