Boost VoIP and Video on Your Network

For the vast majority of network users, QoS boils down to making sure that voice and video applications perform well. If your company's only voice calls occur over Skype and involve personal communications, and if its only video use consists of YouTube downloads viewed during employee breaks, then QoS isn't worth the bother.

The other hand

On the other hand, if you use VoIP as your standard office phone system, or if you want to make extensive use of videoconferencing to replace business travel, proper attention to QoS can significantly upgrade employee productivity and your company's perceived quality in the marketplace. But how do you establish QoS on your network

In most instances, small businesses will see QoS established in the network's router, and perhaps elsewhere. If you dive deeply into the internal structures of network traffic, you'll find two basic flavors of QoS: Integrated Services (IntServ) and Differentiated Services (DiffServ). IntServe permits relatively fine-grain control of traffic streams and tends to be used within small networks or between closely related networks. The DiffServe protocol works on a less precise basis and most often is used between service providers and Internet backbone companies.