Abstract: There is described a system of operating a network entity to distribute a media stream in a communications network. A plurality of different versions of the media stream are available from a content source, each version having a respective quality level different to that of the other versions and each version of the media stream comprises a plurality of consecutive portions. A first request is received from a user device for a portion of a first one of the versions of the media stream stored at a content source and a caching procedure is performed in response to receiving the first request.

Abstract: Systems and methods for proxy media caching are disclosed. A method in accordance with an embodiment of the invention includes receiving at a proxy a response to a request for media content, generating a fingerprint from a sample of media content contained in the response, searching a cache using the fingerprint, and if a cache hit occurs, causing cached media content, which is associated with the cache hit, to be sent to the client device.