“End to end QoS – it’s the user that matters”
Paul Coverdale, Nortel Networks
Quality of Service (QoS) is often treated as a bottom-up process, consisting of a
concatenation of point to point performance-differentiation methodologies with little
consideration for what happens on an end to end basis. This presentation advocates a topdown approach, based on the premise that it is the end-user who is the ultimate beneficiary
of QoS. Focusing on the end-user perspective, examples are given to illustrate the wide
range of service performance levels necessary to provide a high “Quality of Experience”
(QoE) for the user. The concept of QoS service classes is introduced, along with a
discussion of approaches for implementing end to end QoS in actual networks to meet enduser expectations.