A Peer-to-Peer Video Streaming Optimization Strategy Using Token-Based Incentive Mechanisms

International Journal of Computer Science and Technology | Vol. 13, No. 4, April 2011 | pp. 22–28
DOI: 10.46882/2011/IJCST/000110

Research Article

Title: A Peer-to-Peer Video Streaming Optimization Strategy Using Token-Based Incentive Mechanisms

Names of Authors: Giovanni R. Rossi¹, Kim Ji-Hoon²

Authors’ Affiliations: ¹Department of Information Engineering, University of Padua, Padua, Italy; ²School of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Abstract: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live video streaming configurations face significant quality-of-service degradation due to "free-riding" behaviors, where participants consume stream bandwidth without uploading segments back to neighbors. To resolve this structural problem, this research presents a Token-Based Incentive Mechanism (TBIM) for mesh-based P2P streaming systems. The proposed protocol assigns digital cryptographic tokens to nodes as a reward for successful upload bursts, which are then spent to pull high-priority video chunks during playback sequences. Nodes lacking sufficient tokens are throttled into basic buffer tiers, encouraging active data contributions. Simulations conducted over synthetic topologies involving 10,000 nodes demonstrated that TBIM reduces average video startup delay bottlenecks by 35.4% and decreases frame freezing frequencies by 44.1% compared to un-incentivized BitTorrent-like streaming architectures. The overall system upload resource usage achieved an equilibrium index of 0.88, indicating uniform peer cooperation. The computational overhead linked to cryptographic token validation remained under 2.1 milliseconds per transaction, proving that this framework can scale to manage immense concurrent consumer streams on modern commercial video-on-demand deployments.

Keywords: Peer-to-Peer Networks, Video Streaming, Incentive Mechanisms, Free-Riding, Quality of Service

Manuscript Timeline: Received October 15, 2010; Revised November 20, 2010; Accepted December 05, 2010; Published April 24, 2011.

Citation: Rossi, R. G., & Ji-Hoon, K. (2011). A Peer-to-Peer Video Streaming Optimization Strategy Using Token-Based Incentive Mechanisms. International Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 13(4), 22–28.

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