Abstract:
An apparatus and method for media streaming in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network having a plurality of peer modules connected on the network include a source peer module connected on the network, the source peer module being associated with a highest logical level of the network. A plurality of viewer peer modules is also connected on the network, each viewer peer module being associated with a logical network level. The logical network level associated with each viewer peer module is a quantity of logical network levels that the viewer peer module is logically below the source peer module. The P2P network is configured such that each viewer peer module can be connected to no more than one up-peer module logically above the viewer peer module, and each viewer peer module can be connected to any integer number of down-peer modules logically below the viewer peer module.