Service-aware profiling for transport networks

A method of transporting data packets over a telecommunications transport network between a Serving gateway (S-GW) or Packet Data Network gateway (PDN-GW) and a radio base station, wherein the data packets are carried by a plurality of non-guaranteed-bit-rate (non-GBR) bearers, the bearers each carrying data packets that relate to different ones of a plurality of services, the method comprising:

• defining a committed information rate (CIR) for each bearer based on quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of a service to which received data packets relate, as well as on a capacity of a transport network and network topology of a radio base station (RBS) and a gateway (GW) to and from which the data packets are transported via the transportation network established between the RBS and GW, wherein the gateway is a serving gateway (S-GW) or a packet data network gateway (PDN-GW), wherein the transport network is part of a communication network;
• at a network node configured to handle the data packets on a per-bearer basis, applying bandwidth profiling to the data packets of each bearer, independently of the other bearers, to identify and mark the data packets of each of the bearers that are conformant with the defined committed information rate (CIR) for the bearer, wherein the network node is disposed outside the transport network, wherein the defined committed information rate (CIR) is specific to the capacity of the transportation network and the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of the service to which the received data packets relate;
• and
• forwarding the data packets from the network node to the transport network if there is sufficient bandwidth available in the transport network to satisfy the respective committed information rate (CIR) of the data packets, where, if there is insufficient bandwidth available in the transport network to transport all data packets in satisfaction of the committed information rate (CIR), data packets identified by the profiling as not being conformant are the first to be discarded, so as not to be transported through the transport network.