In the field of Quality-of-Service (QoS) management for adaptive real-time services running on mobile devices which support different access technologies in dynamic
wireless Internet Protocol (IP) networks, the
connectivity of the applied nodes is unpredictable time-varying. In this context, a
QoS management unit (304) is proposed that allows adaptive applications with real-time requirements in typical
mobile wireless scenarios—e.g. a radio link with a changing
transmission quality and
handover procedures (2900)—to adaptively and responsively react to a time-varying
network topology and different radio link characteristics. Said
QoS management unit (304) provides methods of pre-allocating, reserving, monitoring and adapting QoS-related parameters in a dynamic mobile environment.The
QoS management unit (304) comprises at least one analysis unit (306) which evaluates QoS requests received from other nodes (402a / b, 404) to inform the application unit (328) of said mobile terminal (208) about the current QoS situation, at least one
processing unit (312) that manages request messages (1200, 2000, 2400) for each type of QoS request, at least one monitoring unit (318) which monitors the current QoS situation within said mobile node (208) and initiates requests by activating the
processing unit (312), and at least one generation unit (322) which is responsible for generating QoS requests or passing them on to the QoS management units (304) of other nodes (402a+b, 404).