Patent ID: 7949781

Claim:
A system for reducing Internet congestion and latency comprising: in an Internet regional domain, client devices for submitting requests for a web content identified by a content URL and receiving packets with a flow number assigned to the URL and included in a packet datagram header; flow routers in the regional domain for directing packets to said client devices, said flow routers being operative for replacing a destination address included in a packet datagram header by a flow number and forwarding packets by the flow number; and a traffic control server for receiving requests from said client devices for a web content identified by a URL and assigning a flow number and a destination address to the URL, said traffic control server further being operative for: (a) providing client devices submitted said URL with said flow number; (b) setting up an interior pass across the regional domain over a sequence of said flow routers by providing flow routers along the pass with said destination address and said flow number; and (c) submitting a request with said URL and said destination address to a content hosting server; thereby enabling client devices that have submitted requests for the same web content to receive the same single flow of packets and thus to prevent congestion and as a result, delays in content delivery that may be caused by multiple separate flows of the same content transmitted from the content hosting server to clients at different clients' addresses.