Peer-to-Peer Content Delivery over Mobile Networks: A Techno-Economic Analysis

The concept of peer-to-peer has been receiving greater attention in recent years. The initial surge in popularity among users is mainly attributed to free content delivery and easier availability. However, such services lack a profitable business model for the players involved. Moreover, it has been a phenomenon seen largely in fixed Internet. With the emergence of mobile data services, peer-to-peer has emerged as a possible candidate for content delivery over mobile networks such as GPRS and UMTS. In this paper, we study the casefor peer-to-peer content delivery over mobile networks byfinding answers to questions such as "when", "why" and "how". We analyse the conditions necessary for a mobile operator to achieve profitability using peer-to-peer mode of content delivery, the reasons why mobile networks are in a better position to exploit the benefits of this mode of delivery and the possible strategies for successful rollout of services using peer-to-peer mode of delivery.