Patent ID: 8849896

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code, where the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to at least: receive from multiple client terminal devices, polling request messages querying about a status of downloadable content in a content distribution system, and respond with polling response messages, wherein said polling request messages are received at client-specific polling instants for each of the multiple client terminal devices; in response to a predetermined event, re-calculate said client-specific polling instants for each of the multiple client terminal devices in order to arrange the client-specific polling instants used by the multiple client terminal devices into polling time slots each having no more than a predetermined maximum amount of polling instants, wherein the apparatus is further caused to determine intermediate time slots of a given length between the polling time slots, while re-calculating the client-specific polling instants; and send the re-calculated client-specific polling instants to their respective client terminal devices to prompt the respective client terminal devices to replace their present polling instants with the re-calculated client-specific polling instants in order to distribute the client-specific polling instants over the polling time slots so that each of the polling time slots has no more than the predetermined maximum amount of polling instants.