Patent ID: 7430187

Claim:
A method of providing Quality of Service (QoS) and/or bandwidth allocation for interactive gaming via a Regional/Access Network (RAN) that provides end-to-end transport between a Gaming Application Service Provider (GASP) and a Customer Premises Network (CPN) that includes a Routing Gateway (RG), the method comprising: determining different levels of subscription service for different subscribers to an interactive game between a plurality of participants, wherein the interactive game supports a number of participants in a range between about 10 and about 1000 participants; and providing different QoS and/or bandwidth allocations to different gaming traffic flows associated with the different subscribers to the interactive game based on the different levels of subscription service of the different subscribers, wherein providing different QoS and/or bandwidth allocations comprises: receiving, at the RAN from the GASP, an inquiry for the QoS and/or bandwidth allocation available to a subscriber to the interactive game responsive to a level of the subscription service to the interactive game by the subscriber; and providing a profile, for the GASP, including an allocated Qos and/or bandwidth allocation for the subscriber based on the received inquiry.