Scalable peer-to-peer streaming for live entertainment content

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable peer-to-peer streaming system for live entertainment that optimizes overlay network topology, uses location-based peer search, and incentivizes capacity sharing to improve quality and scalability.

Contribution

It presents a novel P2P streaming architecture with a swarming overlay, location-based peer search, and an incentives mechanism to enhance live content delivery.

Findings

Achieves low start-up delay and lag in live streaming

Efficient overlay topology minimizes propagation delays

Incentives encourage peers to contribute capacity

Abstract

We present a system for streaming live entertainment content over the Internet originating from a single source to a scalable number of consumers without resorting to centralised or provider- provisioned resources. The system creates a peer-to-peer overlay network, which attempts to optimise use of existing capacity to ensure quality of service, delivering low start-up delay and lag in playout of the live content. There are three main aspects of our solution. Firstly, a swarming mechanism that constructs an overlay topology for minimising propagation delays from the source to end consumers. Secondly, a distributed overlay anycast system that uses a location-based search algorithm for peers to quickly find the closest peers in a given stream. Finally, a novel incentives mechanism that encourages peers to donate capacity even when the user is not actively consuming content.