Fast retrieval and progressive retransmission of content

1. A method comprising:

obtaining, in less than X seconds by an assembling server from at least two fractional-storage servers, erasure-coded fragments needed to reconstruct a streaming content file;

wherein the erasure-coded fragments are associated with segments of the streaming content file, and each of the fractional-storage servers stores at least one erasure-coded fragments per content but less than the minimum data required to reconstruct the segments;

reconstructing, by the assembling device, the streaming content file from fragments comprising the obtained fragments; and

streaming, by the assembling device over a period longer than X seconds, the reconstructed content or a transcoded version of the content to a client device operative to have an incoming communication bandwidth lower than any of the fractional-storage servers and lower than the incoming communication bandwidth of the assembling server.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content file is a large multimedia file, and obtaining the fragments comprises obtaining the fragments using a fragment pull protocol over high bandwidth Internet transit or Internet backbone connections.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content file is a multimedia file of at least 1 Giga Byte, and the steps of obtaining the fragments and reconstructing the content are completed within less than 15 seconds.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein most of the fractional-storage servers are located close to or on the Internet backbone;

further comprising the client device interacting with the assembling server as if the assembling server stores the content file locally; and

the assembling server converting the interactions with the client device into corresponding interactions with the fractional-storage servers.

5. An apparatus comprising:

an assembling server configured to obtain erasure-coded fragments associated with content from fractional-storage servers in less than X seconds;

each of the fractional-storage servers configured to store at least one erasure-coded fragment per content but less than the minimum data required to decode the fragments;

the assembling server is further configured to reconstruct the content from fragments obtained from a combination of sources comprising a plurality of the fractional-storage servers;

the assembling server is further configured to stream the reconstructed content or a transcoded version of the content to a client device over a minimal period longer than X seconds, where the minimal period is bounded by the maximum incoming bandwidth available to the client.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the assembling server is further configured to utilize a fragment pull protocol over high bandwidth Internet transit or over Internet backbone connections to obtain the fragments.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the erasure-coded fragments support source-selection diversity, the fractional-storage servers are located close to or on the Internet backbone, and the assembling server is located at or close to the edge of the Internet.

8. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the assembling server is located at a juncture of an Internet transit network and a last mile network coupled to the client device.

9. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the content is a multimedia content, the fragments are obtained via a high bandwidth connection, and the assembling server is operative to reconstruct the content within ten seconds.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the assembling server is operative to reconstruct a Giga-Byte of content in no more than ten seconds, and the assembling server is further configured to utilize a fragment pull protocol to obtain the fragments.

11. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the erasure-coding is rateless-coding; and

the combination of sources comprises a non fractional-storage server.

12. A system comprising:

CDN servers located close to or on the Internet backbone and configured to store erasure-coded fragments associated with content files;

each of the CDN servers further configured to store less than the minimum amount of data required to decode the fragments;

assembling servers located at or close to the edges of the Internet, spread over a wide area, each configured to obtain erasure-coded fragments associated with the contents from the CDN servers at a bandwidth per content greater than X, reconstruct the contents from fragments comprising the obtained fragments, and stream the contents to user-premises client devices spread over a wide area at a bandwidth per content lower than X.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the assembling servers communicate with the CDN servers via high bandwidth connections having a minimum size of ten Giga-bits-per-second.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the assembling servers are further configured to utilize a fragment pull protocol to obtain the fragments.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the assembling servers are located at one or more of the following locations:

at the edge of the Internet, close to the edge of the Internet, or at a juncture of an Internet transit network and a last mile network coupled to the client devices.

16. The system of claim 12 , wherein the period between obtaining the first fragment associated with a content file and having the reconstructed content is at most one tenth the period needed to stream the reconstructed content to an average client device; and

the assembling server is further configured to utilize a fragment pull protocol to obtain the fragments.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the assembling servers are located at one or more of the following locations:

at the edge of the Internet, close to the edge of the Internet, or at a juncture of an Internet transit network and a last mile network coupled to the client devices.

18. The system of claim 12 , wherein the erasure-coding is rateless-coding;

wherein the fragments used to reconstruct the content comprise fragments obtained from a non fractional-storage server.

19. The system of claim 12 , wherein the assembling servers are configured to stream the contents to nearby client devices.