What is Quality of Service?

Quality of Service or QOS as it’s commonly referred to in the IT community is the process of prioritizing specific traffic on your computer network.  When you have limited bandwidth or trouble with connections within your network, it may be necessary to configure QOS to ensure that voice calls are prioritized over other data.

A good quality network switch (layer 2 and 3) has the ability to identify voice traffic if configured properly.  When your close to the maximum bandwidth your network can handle, QOS rules will kick in and put the voice traffic to the head of the line.  This is not necessary in most networks today as bandwidth is rarely an issue but some rural areas or mobile networks still have lower limits.