QoS: Myths and Hype

The eminent author, who is a Ph.D. in computer science and joint holder of over 50 patents, questions Quality of Service (QoS) in computer networking. Waclawsky calls QoS the Bigfoot of networking, a enduring part of technological folklore. People talk about QoS, but because it rarely succeeds, it has no practical use outside of experimental testbeds and incomplete applications. Today, the main purpose of QoS is to foster discrimination in services and unnecessary billing. QoS is not an adequate substitute for capacity planning; it can add overhead and enormous complexity, infringe privacy, and have unintended impacts on security and, in fact, network reliability itself. The goals of QoS are noble, but prone to end in failure.