Patent ID: 7577750

Claim:
A computer implemented method having instructions executable by a processor for receiving streaming data, comprising: receiving a source data stream from a source computer; receiving one or more peer data streams from one or more peer computers, wherein the one or more peer computers are assigned a color by using a colored overlay, wherein a peer computer produces and sends packets of a peer data stream in the color corresponding to the peer computer; forming a cooperative peer to peer relationship among the peer computers to receive a data stream, wherein the peer computers schedule a departure instance of sending the data stream, wherein the cooperative peer to peer relationship is a peer-paired pyramid streaming architecture comprising the peer computers coupled at a same level as one or more peer pairs; combining at least a portion of the one or more peer data stream with at least a portion of the source data stream to derive a complete data stream; detecting a packet loss and recovering a lost packet, wherein a first peer computer affected by the loss requests a duplicate packet of the packet loss from a second peer computer before issuing a retransmission request to the source computer, wherein if the lost packet is not recovered after exchanging a request to the second peer computer, a receiver issues the retransmission request to the source computer; using a controlled delay between two sessions to the first peer computer and to the second peer computer to handle a burst loss, wherein the two sessions comprise a same content, which are destined for different peer computers, wherein the controlled delay is adjusted based on a current network status; and receiving different portions of the data stream, wherein the peer computers exchange streaming data with another peer computer to form the complete data stream, provided the receiver received an incomplete data stream; wherein the different portions of the data stream is not larger than the portion of the source data stream for aggregated bandwidth efficiency.