Improvements in and relating to managing delay in a multi-hop telecommunication network

A method of operating a multi-hop network comprises the steps of: receiving, at a second node, packet, comprising data or control signalling; calculating, at the second node, a Quality of Service, QoS, characteristic; determining, at the second node, if a Quality of Service, QoS, profile which comprises the characteristic can be guaranteed and, if the result of determining is positive, the second node determines a path and modifies the packet, if necessary, and submits a resultant packet to a next hop in the network according to the determined path; and if the result of determining is negative, the second node notifies a first node that the QoS profile cannot be guaranteed.