Performance analysis and evaluation of P2PTV streaming behavior

P2P TV is gradually emerging as a potential alternative to well known client-server applications such as IPTV, VoD and other real-time TV services. Several P2P platforms such as Zattoo, Joost, Sopcast, and PPlive deliver streams using the user terminals as information relays, an approach considered to be more scalable, resilient and economical than the conventional approaches used by cable and network operators. In this paper we offer a different perspective on P2P TV, unveiling the issues that it causes to the network. Through an experimental-based assessment of Zattoo, our study unveils strengths (e.g. good resilience to end-to-end delay and jitter) and shortcomings (e.g. poor load balancing at network level) and yields recommendations for future P2P IPTV systems.