P2P video streaming with ALTO protocol: A simulation study

With an increasing usage of P2P applications, an increase in Internet traffic is observed. One of the most important reason of this traffic is that P2P applications causes an extra load in backbones since network-awareness level of these applications are not at necessary level. In order to optimize network traffic, IETF ALTO WG has recently proposed a traffic localization protocol. This protocol provides to its users a ranking list considering network related parameters such as location, upload capacity, hop count and much more in order to provide reduction in backbone traffic. On the other hand, P2P video streaming applications require to assure an acceptable level of QoE, thus alto protocol usage in such systems need also consider QoE parameters besides traffic optimization. In this study, we present the effects of ALTO protocol implementation in P2P video streaming applications. We measured the performance in terms of QoE parameters in the ns-3 experiments of ALTO implementation in hybrid push-pull based systems. In the simulations, while a negligable decrease in continuity index is observed, a remarkable amount of decrease in ISP traffic and decrease in initial startup delay is observed.