Patent ID: 8472454

Claim:
A relay server comprising: a first registration section arranged to register therein account information of a communication terminal on a local area network including the relay server, such that the account information of the communication terminal is associated with account information of the relay server; a second registration section arranged to request registration of the account information of the relay server in an external server on a wide area network; a construction section arranged to construct a communication session between the relay server and at least one other relay server via the external server and to construct a relaying communication session directly between the relay server and the at least one other relay server; an exchange section arranged to exchange the account information of the communication terminal that has been associated with the account information of the relay server by the first registration section with account information of at least one other communication terminal that has been registered in the at least one other relay server; and a relay section arranged to: receive from the communication terminal on the local area network a communication request designating account information of one communication terminal from among the at least one other communication terminal registered in the at least one other relay server; determine one relay server from among the at least one other relay server associated with the designated account information of the one communication terminal from among the at least one other communication terminal based on the account information exchanged by the exchange section; and relay communication data between the communication terminal and the one communication terminal from among the at least one other communication terminal via the relaying communication session between the relay server and the one relay server from among the at least one other relay server.