Providing Fast Channel Switching in P2P IPTV Systems

In spite of the increasing deployment of IPTV services, various functionalities still need to be improved. One of the main challenges is a reduction in startup delays, especially in channel switchings, a problem which is quite relevant in P2P IPTV systems due to bandwidth limitations, as well as the employment of buffers and overlay structures. This paper presents and compares four novel schemes for providing fast channel switching that reduce the occurrence of latency. The results suggest that, in general, the proposed schemes are all capable of performing 68% of all channel switchings instantaneously on average. Moreover, the Fast 2 scheme, which presented the best performance, reduces the overall stream quality received less than 19%, on average.