A Peer-to-Peer Communication System

Abstract

The demand of communicating anywhere, anytime on any device is growing with the development of modern information technology. Current instant messaging services enable people to be aware of each other’s presence and to exchange text information. However, almost all of these services are based on client/server architecture. If servers crash, all connections are lost. As an alternative, peer-to-peer architecture basically relies on clients, but existing systems usually emphasize sharing of computing resources and files. In this paper, we propose a peer-to-peer communication system, which combines the advantages of instant messaging services and peer-to-peer networking. In the system, in addition to being aware of each other’s presence, users can simultaneously attend multiple multimedia meetings with each meeting allowing multiple attendees. Users have full control over the exchange of real-time text/voice/video information in these meetings.