Systems, methods and apparatus are provided fordemo-cratic allocation of bandwidth. A user (416) of an entertainment device(102) may select to access content from a large catalog of availablecon-tent. A content source (104) initially begins providing the content to auser device (102) over a low-bandwidth connection, such as an internetprotocol (IP) connection. The content source tabulates the number ofusers accessing the content over the low-bandwidth connection (904). Ifbandwidth becomes available over a high-bandwidth connection, then thecontent source selects the content for transmission over thehigh-band-width (908) connection based on the number of users (600) accessingthecontent. The client device may then begin downloading the content overthe high-bandwidth connection rather than the low-bandwidthconnec-tion, resulting in a faster completion of the download for the user.
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