Patent ID: 8832295

Claim:
A system comprising: a control server configured to: allocate a plurality of peer-to-peer devices to a plurality of fractional-storage CDN servers, wherein the plurality of fractional-storage CDN servers are communicatively connected to the Internet via fixed bandwidth lines and the plurality of peer-to-peer devices are communicatively connected to the Internet via Internet Service Providers (ISPs); manage at least one of the fractional-storage CDN serves and at least one of the peer-to-peer devices to store less than a minimum amount of erasure-coded fragments needed to decode segments of streaming content; manage delivery of at least the minimum amount of erasure-coded fragments needed to decode the segments of streaming content from various combinations of the fractional-storage CDN servers and the peer-to-peer devices; and indicate at least one of the peer-to-peer devices allocated to one of the fractional-storage CDN servers during periods that fragment delivery bandwidth demand is higher than the total fragment delivery bandwidth of the fixed bandwidth lines, to use bandwidth of the ISP to supplement the fragment delivery bandwidth of the fixed bandwidth lines by delivery of erasure-coded fragments in addition to erasure-coded fragments delivered by the one of the fractional-storage CDN servers.