US Patent 7222186 Content transferring technique

A content transfer method allowing the transfer of content requiring no urgency to reduce influence on other traffics is disclosed. A relay server is used to transfer the content from a content server to a cache server. The content is transferred while temporarily storing each relay server in each of sections obtained by the relay server dividing the path from the content server to the cache server. Further, since relay servers perform relay operation during time slots determined for respective ones of the relay servers, the influence on other traffics can be more reduced.