Patent ID: 8077609

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium, accessible to a server, comprising program instructions executable by the server to: receive a request from a customer equipment for a service over a packet-switched network; determine an availability of the network to provide the service at a selected quality of service level wherein the program instructions to determine the availability including instructions to: estimate a current value of a front end metric selected from a group consisting of mean packet transfer delay, delay jitter, packet loss ratio, and packet error ratio and wherein the front end of the network includes a portion of the network between a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) and a gateway at a customer location; and estimate a value of a back end metric selected from the group consisting of mean packet transfer delay, delay jitter, packet loss ratio, and packet error ratio wherein the back end of the network includes a portion of the network between a video server and the DSLAM; and provide the service when the availability indicates the selected quality of service level.