METHOD FOR PROVIDING END-TO-END QUALITY OF SERVICE IN A SOFTSWITCH-BASED NETWORK FOR VOICE AND OTHER REAL TIME APPLICATIONS

摘要

The present invention provides end-to-end (ETE) quality of service (QoS) for voice and other real time applications in a Softswitch-based network, and more particularly, in a packet data network or IP network (200) that is capable of setting up and routing voice calls through Softswitch. The soft switch system comprises a call agent (202) that sets up and routes the calls. A universal quality of service manager (UQM) is formed to work with the call agent and the gateways (208, 212) and routers of the IP network (200) to provision, control, and guarantee the ETE QoS for voice and other real time applications. The UQM consists of five components: Bandwidth Manager, Policy Engine, Real Time Performance Monitor, Admission Controller, and Bandwidth Broker. With different levels of interactions between the above five components, the QoS for voice and other real time applications can be achieved by QoS provisioning, QoS controlling, and an ETE QoS guarantee.