Peer-to-peer multi-party voice-over-ip services

A computer program product for providing multi-party voice-over-IP services, the computer program product comprising:

• a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing computer instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising:
• establishing a peer-to-peer distribution tree to broadcast a composite audio signal from a root mixing node to a plurality of participating nodes, wherein a subset of the participating nodes are originating nodes that provide a respective audio stream output received by the root mixing node to produce the composite audio signal;
• monitoring a processing load on the first intermediate mixing node and on at least one neighbor node within the participating nodes;
• identifying, in response to an increase in the processing load on the first intermediate mixing node and independently of the distribution tree, a second intermediate mixing node from the at least one neighbor;
• assigning, in response to the identifying, a portion of the first subset of originating nodes to the second intermediate mixing node and configuring the second intermediate mixing node to provide a mixing of the portion of the first subset of originating nodes to a parent mixing node of the first intermediate mixing node;
• and
• identifying, independently of the peer-to-peer distribution tree, a first intermediate mixing node and a backup intermediate mixing node from within the plurality of participating nodes, the first intermediate mixing node providing to the root mixing node a mixing of respective audio stream outputs provided by a first subset of originating nodes to the first intermediate mixing node.