Apparatus and method for managing peer-to-peer connections between different service providers

Abstract

A system and method for using bloom filters to identify service providers. For example, in one embodiment of the invention, service providers generate bloom filters with the user ID codes of registered users and exchange the bloom filters with one another. In response to a request to locate a first user, a first service provider will query its own registration database to determine if the first user is registered with the first service provider. If the first user is not registered with the first service provider, then the first service provider will query its bloom filters to identify other service providers with which the first user may be registered. A positive response from a bloom filter indicates that the first user may or may not be registered with the service provider associated with that bloom filter, and a negative response indicates with certainty that the first user is not registered with the service provider associated with that bloom filter. The request to locate the first user is only transmitted to those service providers for which a positive bloom filter response has been received.

Description

[0001] priority statement [0002] This application claims priority to US Provisional Application Serial No. 61 / 454,930, filed March 21, 2011, and entitled "Apparatus and Method for Managing Peer-To-Peer Connections Between Different Service Providers." technical field [0003] The present invention relates generally to the field of computer networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to improved apparatus and methods for managing peer-to-peer (P2P) connections between mobile devices. Background technique [0004] A. Network Address Translation (“NAT”) [0005] Large public networks (eg, the Internet) are frequently connected to smaller private networks (eg, networks maintained by businesses, Internet service providers, or even individual homes). By their very nature, public networks must have a recognized assignment of network addresses, ie, public addresses. For various reasons, maintainers of private networks often choose to use private network addresse...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0012] The NAT operation described above causes numerous problems for P2P connections

For example, if one or both peers are behind one or more NATs of the above type, it becomes increasingly difficult to establish a direct connection between the two peers

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