A method and apparatus for managing data, voice, application, and video services allows anticipation of poor quality of service from a remote management station, in order to allow correction of the cause before the end user perceives service quality degradation. Specific system phenomena are identified that coincide with user-perceived service degradation in a particular network. The network is then monitored for the occurrence of those phenomena. Incipient or existing user-perceived quality of service degradation is inferred from the occurrence of one or more of those phenomena and action is taken to avoid and/or correct the degraded service quality condition. In a preferred embodiment, as many of the steps as possible are performed automatically by a network management system. In one embodiment, a close correlation is assumed between application data buffer over-extension and poor quality of service from a user's point of view. In this embodiment, a monitor is placed on the application data buffer that raises an alarm for a network management system whenever the buffer is close to over-extension or an algorithm identifies a trend towards over-extension.