Analysis and quality assessment of peer-to-peer IPTV systems

At present, Web portals offering streaming of stored video contents or live TV channels have become a rapidly emerging new Internet service. We investigate the traffic characteristics, performance and perceived quality of available IPTV services which use peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay networks, called P2PTV. We analyze gathered traces of a comprehensive measurement study to determine the structure of P2PTV applications and the employed protocol stack with its related message flows. Furthermore, we compare the quality of different peer-to-peer dissemination systems and illustrate drawbacks and weaknesses of the approach.

I. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, network operators and Internet service providers have assigned the highest priority to the integration of triple-play including VoIP, video streaming and video on demand as well as IPTV services into the portfolio of their evolving next generation networks. It is expected to become a billion dollar market in the next years and a key driver of next generation networks with their advanced Web-based integrated multimedia services.