Patent ID: 8640199

Claim:
A method of providing a service to a network device from a group of network devices, some but not all of the network devices being subscribed to said service, the method comprising: determining which network devices of the group are not subscribed to said service in response to a service request from one of the network devices of said group; querying at least the network devices of the group that are subscribed to said service for permission to at least temporarily share the service with an unsubscribed network device based on one or more of the subscribed network devices being allocated a cost for temporarily sharing the service with said unsubscribed network device; and at least temporarily providing the service to at least some of the unsubscribed network devices in response to a positive response to said query from at least one of the subscribed network devices assenting to bear at least a portion of the cost of temporarily sharing the service with said unsubscribed network device.