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).