The telecommunications network of an ISP (Internet Service Provider) is actually an interaction of various networks types, within LTE (4G) can be highlighted as an access network to the end user. The information flow reaches to the user through several infrastructures, on which the ISP carries data traffic, from this perspective, some necessary points will be discussed in order to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) in such environments.

From the point of view of LTE management, it is permitted to define profiles and classes of services, which are key points when negotiating QoS mobile requirements during the communication establishment, the transit of packets, even in handovers. However, it is necessary to consider the access and transport network if we want to ensure end-to-end QoS.

Transport Network

A typical scenario of an Internet service provider could be described as shown in Figure # 1, it can be seen that LTE is only a part of the provider's access network. The ISP has different types of access networks depending on the provided services. All the necessary infrastructure to transport information from the access networks, must transit through the core network. The core is also connected with other different network types, where the end service is usually located (Internet, PSTN, ftp services, video streaming, voice or other), which the user wants to access.

Figure # 1. ISP's simplified topology [2].

Macro-cells are not very efficient [1] in the residential area due to penetration problems that have been mentioned in a previous article, also in the macro-cells there are many users and is more difficult to provide QoS to all of them. For these reasons Internet Service Providers (ISP) have opted for femto-cell implementation at residential level, in order to increase the quality of services provided.

Femto-cells are low-power base stations that provide low cost and high quality wireless services to residential, in this area offer a coverage of approximately 10 m [2], which are designed to integrate automatically with macro-cell networks. Femto-cells integrate with mobile operator through a broadband connection, typically DSL [2] and [3], as can be seen in Figure # 1. However it can also be performed by a wireless link as mentioned in [4]. In General, the femto-cell redirects the traffic from the home cellular system, through the broadband connection, releasing the resource consumption of the macro-cell.

Figure # 1. Typical Femto-cell [3].