Patent ID: 7257646

Claim:
A method of communicating in an Internet communication network having a plurality of interconnected Internet sub-nets, each sub-net having interconnected nodes, wherein communication takes place between two nodes in different Internet sub-nets, one of said nodes being an originating node and the other being a destination node, said method comprising: providing an overlay network comprising a number of relay proxy (RP) servers provided in nodes of the sub-nets and a route setup server (RSS) in one of the nodes; selecting by the RSS. a path between the originating node and the destination node based at least partly on quality requirements of the communication, said path using selected RP servers of the overlay network; allocating to said communication, a temporary sending address that belongs to the RSS; distributing to each selected RP server and storing therein, an association between the temporary sending address and the address to be used by each RP server as the destination address to the next RP server along the path; transmitting a packet from the originating node, substituting the temporary sending address in place of the originating node address and using as a destination node address. the address of the RP server which is first along the path; receiving the packet at the first RP server and transmitting the packet further along the path using as the originating node address, the temporary sending address and as the destination node address, the address of the next RP server along the path, wherein the address of the next RP server along the path is given by the association which is stored in the first RP server; repeating the above receiving step at each RP server along the path until the packet is received at the last RP server prior to the destination node, at which the packet includes the address of the originating node as the packet's originating node address, and includes the address of the destination node as the packet's destination node address, wherein the originating node address and the destination node address are given by the association stored at the last proxy server, and receiving the packet at the destination node.