Rewarding techniques in peer-to-peer video streaming systems with tree and forest topology

Peer-to-peer networks are an increasingly popular solution for the distribution of media content to a large number of users, with limited investments for network infrastructures. The distribution of a real time video stream imposes strict performance requirements such as small playback delays and few frame losses. However, performances are greatly affected by the upload bandwidth of the access networks of peers. In this paper we propose a set of rewarding techniques able to cleverly exploit the use of peers´ upload bandwidth, and provide a sensitivity analysis through which we determine the conditions under which the rewarding techniques are beneficial. The study, carried out through simulation, considers a general peer-to-peer video streaming reference model with tree/forest topology. From our point of view, the proposed rewarding technique is simple enough to be used as a benchmark for the evaluation of more sophisticated approaches.