Patent ID: 8478836

Claim:
A method of controlling a media device to access content from a cache, the method comprising: determining, for each of multiple content files, a metric indicative of anticipated availability of the corresponding content file from an internal peer that is within a network of a network service provider, the network service provider using less bandwidth to service content requests to internal peers that are within the network of the network service provider as compared to servicing content requests to external peers that are outside of the network of the network service provider; determining, for each of the multiple content files, a cache benefit score based on the determined metric indicative of anticipated availability of the corresponding content file from an internal peer that is within the network of the network service provider; determining, based on the cache benefit score determined for each of the of the multiple content files, a subset of the multiple content files to include in a proxy cache maintained by the network service provider that provides network service to a user media device included in a content delivery network; controlling the network service provider to store the subset of content files in the proxy cache; and controlling the user media device to attempt to use the proxy cache as a peer to access a content file prior to using an external peer that is outside of the network of the network service provider and accessible, to the user media device, on an external network through the network service provider, wherein determining, for each of the multiple content files, the metric indicative of anticipated availability of the corresponding content file from an internal peer that is within the network of the network service provider comprises: determining, for each of the multiple content files, a percentage of access requests for the corresponding content file that were serviced from an external peer that is outside of the network of the network service provider relative to access requests for the corresponding content file that were serviced from the proxy cache maintained by the network service provider, from an internal peer that is inside of the network of the network service provider, and from a content and directory database; and based on the determined percentage of access requests for the corresponding content file that were serviced from an external peer that is outside of the network of the network service provider, determining, for each of the multiple content files, the metric indicative of anticipated availability of the corresponding content file from an internal peer that is within the network of the network service provider.