Can P2P Technology Benefit Eyeball ISPs? A Cooperative Profit Distribution Answer

Abstract: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology has been regarded as a promising way to help Content Providers (CPs) cost-effectively distribute content. However, under the traditional Internet pricing mechanism, the fact that most P2P traffic flows among peers can dramatically decrease the profit of ISPs, who may take actions against P2P and impede the progress of P2P technology. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to analyze such economic issues. Inspired by the idea from cooperative game theory, we propose a cooperative profit-distribution model based on Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS), in which eyeball ISPs and Peer-assisted CPs (PCPs) form two coalitions respectively and then compute a fair Pareto point to determine profit distribution. Moreover, we design a fair and feasible mechanism for profit distribution within each coalition. We show that such a cooperative method not only guarantees the fair profit distribution among network participators, but also helps to improve the economic efficiency of the overall network system. To our knowledge, this is the first work that systematically studies solutions for P2P caused unbalanced profit distribution and gives a feasible cooperative method to increase and fairly share profit.