  In Peer-to-Peer (P2P) multichannel live streaming, helper peers with surplus
bandwidth resources act as micro-servers to compensate the server deficiencies
in balancing the resources between different channel overlays. With deployment
of helper level between server and peers, optimizing the user/helper topology
becomes a challenging task since applying well-known reciprocity-based choking
algorithms is impossible due to the one-directional nature of video streaming
from helpers to users. Because of selfish behavior of peers and lack of central
authority among them, selection of helpers requires coordination. In this
paper, we design a distributed online helper selection mechanism which is
adaptable to supply and demand pattern of various video channels. Our solution
for strategic peers' exploitation from the shared resources of helpers is to
guarantee the convergence to correlated equilibria (CE) among the helper
selection strategies. Online convergence to the set of CE is achieved through
the regret-tracking algorithm which tracks the equilibrium in the presence of
stochastic dynamics of helpers' bandwidth. The resulting CE can help us select
proper cooperation policies. Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm
achieves good convergence, load distribution on helpers and sustainable
streaming rates for peers.
