Content delivery

摘要

Wireless routers having an ADSL or cable connection to content data available via the Internet, a wired connection for connecting local clients in a LAN and a wireless controller for connecting to other wireless routers and clients in a wireless local area networks (WLANs). The WLANs often intersect and therefore it is possible to communicate between wireless routers in order to exchange content data via the wireless LAN in addition to the ADSL or cable connection. Further, each wireless routers has a cache data store to cache content data requested by the user, or any other information sent to the wireless router from another wireless router. A central server can schedule transfer of content data between wireless routers by considering information packets stored on the server

主权项

1. A method of operating a first wireless router to process a request issued by a connected client device for an item of multimedia content data available from a remote multimedia content provider, said first wireless router being connected to said remote multimedia content provider via a wide area network data link, and having a wireless interface for generating a first wireless network, said first wireless network intersecting with a second wireless network created by a second wireless router, said second wireless router having a data store containing said item of multimedia content data, the method comprising:
intercepting the request issued by the connected client device; determining whether said requested item of content data is available in a data store of the first wireless router; if the requested item of content data is available in the data store of the first wireless router, transferring the requested item of content data to the connected client device; if the requested item of content data is not available in the data store of the first wireless router:
connecting to said second wireless network of the second wireless router as a client device via the wireless interface;determining whether said requested item of content data is available on the data store of said second wireless router; andtransferring the requested item of content data stored in said data store of the second wireless router via the second wireless network to the data store of the first wireless router if a determination is made that said requested item of content data is available on the data store of said second wireless router; and transferring the requested item of content data from the data store of the first wireless router to the connected client device.