Peer-To-Peer Broadcasting P2P
Currently the Internet does not allow an efficient distribution of broadcast services, as each client needs to get a separate datastream (Unicast) from his provider. The upcoming IPv6 standard potentially brings about a broad support of the IP-multicast protocol, which would allow an efficient transport of datastreams towards certain user-groups. Until these mechanisms have been adopted and deployed by internet service providers (ISP), peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, which are well-known from filesharing applications, can be used as an alternative. Such overlay networks can also be used for the distribution of live streams, where the network resources on the provider side for each “P2P-cloud” theoretically could be reduced to the bandwidth needed for one single client.
Already at an early stage IRT started to explore the theoretical and practical challenges of P2P-mechanisms. This know-how is being used to develop enhanced solutions for the distribution of broadcast content based on P2P-technology. By decomposing the original data in small pieces (“chunks”) and exchanging these between the clients (peers) in the P2P-cloud, the network is used in an optimal way and the central server is not additionally burdened. Whereas for classical streaming mechanisms more concurrent clients also mean higher costs for the content provider (linear relationship), in P2P-networks the opposite is true: the more clients in the P2P-cloud, the more stable the system gets, without increasing the costs for the provider. Thus, by deploying P2P-technology a much larger audience can be addressed simultaneously at lower costs (assuming that the network / traffic costs of the peers are included in flat-rate subscriptions of the end-users).
Notwithstanding the rapid increase in unicast-traffic, stimulated by audio- and video-portals such as YouTube, broadcasters’ Catch-up TV platforms and the like, P2P-traffic still covers a considerable amount of the world-wide Internet traffic. The load on complex Content Delivery Networks (CDN) – that are used nowadays to enhance the Quality of Service (QoS) of HTTP-transfers – could be reduced by deploying hybrid P2P-solutions. Obviously, in any future solution the neutrality of the network, with respect to technology as well as content, remains an essential requirement for a sustained usage of the open Internet from ISP- through backbone- and CDN-provider up to the end-user.
P2P-Next Project
The european research project „Next Generation Peer-To-Peer Content Delivery Platform“ aims at developing an open, European “Next-Generation” peer-to-peer based distribution system for Web-TV. The project’s consortium consists of universities, manufacturers such as Pioneer as well as broadcast representatives (IRT, BBC, European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and others). The project investigates and tests the potential of adopting the filesharing technology for an internet-based TV of the future. Legal and regulatory issues are being considered as well, especially against the background of illegal file-sharing that has brought P2P-protocols to the attention of the masses over the past years. To counter any reservations that might still exist, the project will show network providers, ISPs and content providers how P2P-technology can be used for the legal distribution of content and services.
P2P-Next develops and implements highly bandwidth-efficient mechanisms for the distribution of audio and video streams to millions of concurrent end-users without the need for a centralised server farm. The methods used are based on the open-source Tribler protocols, that also are being used by BitTorrent. The overall approach of the project aims at delivering the same content to a PC environment as well as to settop-boxes via a P2P overlay network. In P2P-Next the partners develop the respective versions of the required software: „Nextshare-PC“ (a stand-alone software player or browser plugin) and “Nextshare-TV” (for deployment on CE-devices).
In the project IRT focuses on investigating and testing the performance of the Nextshare overlay-network infrastructure for the distribution of typical broadcast content and services up to HDTV-quality. Also IRT evaluates to what extent public broadcasters’ requirements are met, e.g. the unencrypted exchange of content between peers in the P2P-cloud whilst assuring the integrity of the TV-services. Last but not least, IRT encourages and contributes to the standardisation and specification of new, internationally deployable P2P-protocols, that can be used in IT- as well as CE-markets and that support all broadcast services, from linear programs, through subtitles and teletext up to interactive applications.
Official Homepage of P2P-Next
