Mechanism design for dynamic P2P streaming

In dynamic streaming, a user can dynamically choose from different versions of the same video. In P2P dynamic streaming, there is one P2P swarm for each version, and within a swarm, peers can share video chunks with each other, thereby reducing the server's bandwidth cost. Due to economy of scale, cooperation among peers can also reduce the per-peer content price. In this paper, we use cooperative game theory to dynamically assign each peer to a version. To maximally incentivize peer cooperation, we use mechanism design to develop pricing schemes that reflect content and bandwidth cost savings derived from peer cooperation. With this approach, each peer is assigned to a swarm that is commensurate with its upload contribution and the price it is willing to pay. We also develop and simulate a distributed dynamic P2P streaming algorithm, consisting of chunk scheduling, token-based accounting, and video version switching, to dynamically adjust each peer's video version based on the collaborative behaviors of all peers.