Patent ID: 9571571
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method for joining a peer-to-peer network according to a protocol, the method comprising: identifying, by a joining peer, a club of the peer-to-peer network to join, the peer-to-peer network including a plurality of clubs and a plurality of peers receiving streaming content distributed by a source, each of the plurality of clubs including a subset of the plurality of peers, and each of the plurality of peers part of at least two clubs; receiving, by the joining peer, identifying information for peers in the identified club; responsive to receiving the identifying information, requesting, by the joining peer, connection information from the peers in the identified club; responsive to requesting connection information, receiving, by the joining peer from each of the peers in the identified club, connection information including a number of connections the peer in the identified club has with other peers; randomly selecting, by the joining peer from the peers in the identified club, at least a first peer and a second peer with which to establish connections, the random selection proportionally weighted by the number of connections the first peer has with other peers as indicated by the received connection information and the number of connections the second peer has with other peers as indicated by the received connection information; responsive to randomly selecting the first peer and the second peer, establishing, by the joining peer, a first connection with the first peer and a second connection with the second peer; receiving, by the joining peer from the first peer via the first connection, a data block of streaming content assigned to the identified club; and responsive to receiving the data block from the first peer, notifying, by the joining peer, the second peer that the data block has been received.