Patent ID: 8161178

Claim:
A network services system, comprising: a processor; an information store comprising connection information to initiate connections to content sources, wherein the connection information includes an address and a connection rule associated with a video content source; an access engine executed by the processor to receive a request for an information stream output by the video content source from a user device, the request including an alias mapable to the address; a services engine communicatively coupled to the access engine and to the information store, the services engine executed by the processor to: send information to the user device that indicates a first option to access the video content source via an internet connection and a second option to access the video content source via a point-to-point communication link; receive a selection of one of the first option and the second option from the user device; and when the selection indicates a selection of the second option and the video content source is not reachable via a point-to-point communication link, initiate an internet connection between the user device and the video content source; and a metrics engine executed by the processor to track a metric associated with the point to point communication link and to generate a billing record at least partially based upon the metric.