Eliminating Packet Loss Accumulation in Peer-to-Peer Streaming Systems

To eliminate packet loss accumulation and overcome bursty packet loss problems caused by peer departures in peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming systems, a multisource structure combining with a distributed forward error correction (FEC) scheme is proposed. In the proposed structure, each peer connects to multiple parents according to the prespecified FEC packets ensemble and each parent forwards partial streaming packets to the peer. If one or few parents fail, other parents can still provide remaining part of streaming packets that can be used to recover the missing packets by using packet level FEC scheme. Packet loss probability and packet loss accumulation from parent peers to child peers in tree-based P2P streaming systems are investigated. The analysis and NS2 simulation results show that packet loss probability is reduced and furthermore the packet loss accumulation can be eliminated when an appropriate FEC protection is used.