Dynamic quality of service reservation in a mobile communications network

In a mobile radio communications system having plural mobile radio hosts communicating with a radio network over a radio interface using radio resources from a pool of resources allocated to the plural mobile radio hosts where a mobile host communicates packet data with an external network by way of a packet gateway node associated with the radio network and a packet serving node associated with the radio network, a method comprising:

• establishing a packet session for the mobile radio host over the radio interface using radio resources from the pool during which plural application flows are communicated between the mobile host and an external network entity, each application flow having a corresponding stream of packets;
• making a reservation request for a particular quality of service for an individual application flow associated with the packet session;
• determining whether the reservation request can be met with radio resources from the pool;
• if so, establishing a logical bearer between the mobile radio host and the gateway node to bear plural ones of the individual application flows having different corresponding quality of services;
• classifying and scheduling packets corresponding to each application flow from the external network to the mobile radio host over the bearer in accordance with the quality of service corresponding to the application packet stream;
• the serving node monitoring each of the application flows from the gateway node to determine whether a data transmission volume limit is exceeded;
• and
• if so, the serving node discarding packets corresponding to an application flow having a lowest quality of service reserved.

In a mobile radio communications system having plural mobile radio hosts communicating with a radio network over a radio interface using radio resources from a pool of radio resources allocated to the plural mobile radio hosts, where the mobile radio hosts communicate packet data with an external network by way of a packet gateway node and a packet serving node associated with the radio network, a method comprising:

• establishing a packet session over the radio interface for a mobile radio host using radio resources from the pool during which plural application flows are communicated with an external network entity, each application flow having a corresponding stream of packets;
• defining a corresponding quality of service parameter for each of the plural application flows such that different quality of service parameters may be defined for different ones of the application flows;
• the serving node merging packets from different sessions with the same quality of service destined for different mobile radio hosts within a same geographical service area;
• and
• the serving node assigning packets destined for a same geographical service area but with different qualities of service to different priority queues corresponding to the different qualities of service,
• wherein a larger number of packets are removed from a queue having a higher quality of service than a queue having a lower quality of service.

For use in a mobile radio communications system having plural mobile radio hosts communicating with a radio network over a radio interface using radio resources from a pool of radio resources allocated to the plural mobile radio hosts, where the mobile radio hosts communicate packet data with an external network by way of a packet gateway node and a packet serving node associated with the radio network, wherein a packet session is established over the radio interface for a mobile radio host using radio resources from the pool during which plural application flows are communicated with an external network entity, each application flow having a corresponding stream of packets, and a corresponding quality of service parameter is defined for each of the plural application flows such that different quality of service parameters may be defined for different ones of the application flows, a radio packet network node, comprising:

• electronic circuitry configured to merge packets from different sessions with a same quality of service destined for different mobile radio hosts within a same geographical service are and to assign packets destined for a same geographical service area but with different qualities of service to different priority queues corresponding to the different qualities of service, wherein the electronic circuitry is configured to remove a larger number of packets from a queue having a higher quality of service than a queue having a lower quality of service.