Patent ID: 8321900

Claim:
A method comprising: at a first customer premises equipment device coupled to a multimedia distribution network, generating a first request for multimedia content; evaluating an uplink bandwidth capacity of the first customer premises equipment device; after evaluating the uplink bandwidth capacity, sending the first request from the first customer premises equipment device to a network node of the multimedia distribution network; receiving the multimedia content at the first customer premises equipment device from a virtual peer located at the network node; storing the multimedia content at the first customer premises equipment device; receiving a message at the first customer premises equipment device from the network node via the multimedia distribution network, the message indicating a transmission of a subsequent request for the multimedia content by a second customer premises equipment device, wherein the message is distinct from the subsequent request; when the uplink bandwidth capacity is less than a threshold: identifying one or more first helper virtual peers to transmit at least a portion of the multimedia content to the second customer premises equipment device; and transmitting a first portion of the multimedia content from the first customer premises equipment device to the second customer premises equipment device, wherein the one or more first helper virtual peers transmit a second portion of the multimedia content to the second customer premises equipment device; and when the uplink bandwidth capacity is greater than the threshold: identifying subsequent requestors that the first customer premises equipment device has a capacity to service; and transmitting at least a portion of the stored multimedia content from the first customer premises equipment device to one or more of the subsequent requestors.