Rate loss in the Gaussian CEO problem

We present a characterization of the Gaussian CEO rate region, in which the operational point at each boundary is characterized by one free parameter. That parameter determines the water level. Only those sensors whose observation noise is below that water level need to compress and transmit their data. Using that characterization, we present a simple (suboptimal) achievable region, expressed in terms of the difference between the noisy and the noiseless rate-distortion functions. Using that achievable region, we can explicitly bound the rate loss due to lack of cooperation among the compressors.