Patent ID: 7903652

Claim:
A system comprising an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) server configured to: receive a request from an IPTV content storage device (CSD) to view a video stream; select a set of peers for the IPTV CSD; and permit a particular peer to upload only a single IPTV CSD at a time; and select a number of the peers from the set of peers equal to a rate of the video stream being viewed by the IPTV CSD divided by an upload bandwidth out of the IPTV CSD when there is a sufficiency of free peers having the requested video stream: transmit the set of peers to the IPTV CSD; wherein the IPTV server further comprises a configuration to reassign a number of the peers from the set of peers when an already assigned peer that is capable of serving a particular video content is in use by another IPTV CSD; wherein a capacity of a fiber to the node (FTTN) switch in a down linking direction is greater than or equal to a sum of a number of simultaneous viewers supported by the FTTN switch plus a number of viewers that receive additional video streams from peers in a same community.