We propose a game theory scheme to enable cooperation among ISPs to support P2P streaming applications as well as
to decrease unnecessary inter-domain streaming traffic.
• We define a utility function of the ISP and discuss the existing equilibrium points and a fairness criterion to select the
equilibrium that satisfies a social fairness criterion.
• We derive an Evolutionary Game Theory approach to design a distributed schemata that the ISPs can use to reach ‘‘socially
acceptable’’ equilibrium points in a large ISP population.
• Furthermore, we develop a discrete event simulation to evaluate the effectiveness of the Evolutionary Game Theory
framework and complement the theoretical analysis.
The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 surveys related work while a system description and
modeling assumptions are presented in Section 3. Section 4 introduces the ISP game model and analyzes the Nash
equilibrium, the Pareto optimality, and a fairness criterion to refine the equilibrium points. The Evolutionary Game Theory
(EGT) model of the ISPs game that allows us to investigate large scale systems is presented in Section 5. In Section 6 we
present a simulation based investigation that complements the theoretical studies we present. Finally, Section 7 concludes
the paper by discussing future research developments.