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Understanding quality of service
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Quality of Service refers to the ability of a network to offer an
enhanced level of service to certain types of traffic. For example,
Voice-over-IP (VoIP) traffic requires lower latency and jitter than web
and e-mail traffic. Bonded Internet can be used to implement almost any
type of traffic management strategy.

The following table shows the sensitivity of some common applications to
network bandwidth, latency, and jitter.

+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
|                    | Bandwidth          | Latency            | Jitter             |
+====================+====================+====================+====================+
| **DNS**            | Low                | High               | Low                |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| **VoIP**           | Medium             | High               | High               |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| **Video            | High               | High               | High               |
| conferencing**     |                    |                    |                    |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| **Web browsing**   | High               | Medium             | Low                |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| **E-mail**         | Medium             | Low                | Low                |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| **Web TV/video**   | High               | Low                | Low                |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

A network with ideal QoS would give each application the level of
service it required, even when more than one application is active on
the network. For example, VoIP traffic would receive low-latency,
low-jitter service while web browsing traffic receives high-bandwidth
service.
