Cooperation Incentives and Enablers for Wireless Peers in Heterogeneous Networks

Abstract

Various incentive schemes have been proposed to force or encourage peers to contribute their resources to peer-to-peer networks. Such schemes are typically designed for peers with fixed Internet connections and do not take the special properties of wireless peers into account. In this paper we propose a P2P credit system especially targeted for the cases where mobile devices join P2P networks. Instead of limiting the incentive and reputation mechanisms to a single device our scheme encompasses all the connected devices of a user. We discuss the limitations of today's incentive schemes from the wireless devices point of view, present the P2P credit system concept and highlight its operation with a number of use cases. Through mathematical analysis we illustrate the potential of the solution.