A Simple Proactive Provider Participation Technique in a Mesh-Based Peer-to-Peer Streaming Service

The design of efficient protocols for mesh-based Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks has many challenges, one of them is bandwidth allocation. On one hand, peers demand high Quality of Experience and network traffic when they watch their streaming contents. On the other, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) support their business with the capacity of their international links. A recent strategy considered in order to meet both requirements is the Proactive Provider Participation, shortly named P4P [1], [2]. This paper addresses the multi-objective P4P problem for live video content. First, we introduce a Ford-Fulkerson-based solution, that solves the P4P problem when only one content is distributed. Second, a greedy randomized technique is applied when multiple contents are shared. Finally, our algorithm is tested in a real multiple-content scenario, showing that the results highly outperform current strategies.