Patent ID: 8645534

Claim:
A method of processing peer-to-peer requests comprising: receiving an announce message from an announcing peer, the announce message containing an address of the announcing peer and content contained by the announcing peer; determining an internet service provider (ISP) associated with the address of the announcing peer using a first database, the first database associating addresses and ISPs; storing, at a network element, peer information in a second database, the peer information indicating the ISP associated with the announcing peer and the content contained by the announcing peer; receiving a request for content from a requester, the request for content including an address of the requester and content requested by the requester; determining an ISP associated with the address of the requester using the first database; formulating a response to the requester based on the determined ISP associated with the address of the requester, the content requested and a number of peers within the determined ISP that have the content requested as indicated by the second database; and sending the response to the requester.