Patent ID: 8717902

Claim:
A method of reducing traffic relating to a service provider network comprising a core packet network, a plurality of first access points situated at edge routers which peer the core network to an external packet network, and a plurality of second access points which separate a layer 2 (L2) connectivity network from the core network and which act as an Internet Protocol (IP) point of presence for local subscribers, the method comprising: providing a cache at each of the access points for caching content passing through the respective access points; in response to a request received from the external network at any of the first access points for content from a local subscriber; attempting to serve the request from content previously cached at that first access point or another of the first access points; if unable to serve the request from any of the first access point caches then attempting to serve the request from content previously cached at the second access point serving the local subscriber; and if unable to serve the request from that second access point cache then forwarding the request to the local subscriber.