Providing service differentiation for video streaming in hybrid P2P overlay network

In Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, a great number of peers are reluctant to contribute to the system. An incentive mechanism thus becomes a necessary component to motivate the cooperation of peers. Moreover, due to the continuous nature of data transmission, the P2P media streaming requires different incentive strategies from the P2P file-sharing. In this paper, we propose a new service differentiation mechanism to provide a redistribution incentive for P2P streaming in a hybrid overlay network. The contribution amount of a peer can be measured from the number of video sub-streams it transmits, instead of the quantity of transferred data. By sending one request message, the number of sub-streams that each peer can retrieve is varied by its contribution amount. An altruistic peer thus has to send less request messages and experiences smoother video quality than a selfish peer. Through simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed mechanism can provide service differentiation among peers according to their contribution amount.