Patent ID: 8533327

Claim:
A peer-to-peer network comprising: a plurality of intelligent terminal nodes, each intelligent terminal node being configured to establish, maintain, and tear-down communication sessions directly with another intelligent terminal node, the plurality of intelligent terminal nodes comprising at least one user P2P function module configured to store, locate and distribute service resource information associated with a user policy function; and a plurality of network service nodes coupled to the plurality of intelligent terminal nodes, the plurality of network service nodes comprising at least one of the plurality of intelligent terminal nodes and at least one network P2P function module configured to store, locate and distribute service resource information associated with a provider policy decision function and to exert stricter security control over a communication session than the security control exerted by the at least one user P2P function module; wherein the plurality of intelligent terminal nodes and the plurality of network service nodes are not one or more of a session admission control component or one or more of a POTS Access Function, and the plurality of intelligent terminal nodes and the plurality of network service nodes do not maintain session state information.