A method includes a network originating a QoS reservation message and communicating the network-originated QoS message through a radio access network (RAN) from an access gateway (AGW) to an access terminal (AT). The network-originated reservation message does not cause any network resource reservation by itself, but causes the AT to initiate a network resource reservation according to one or more parameters in the network-originated QoS reservation message. Accordingly, an existing network infrastructure supporting AT-originated QoS reservation may support network-originated QoS reservation (or proxied QoS) without any updates to an access-network infrastructure, such as the RAN. The method includes, in response to the network-initiated QoS reservation message, communicating a reservation confirmation through the RAN from the AT to the AGW. The reservation confirmation whether that the QoS reservation was successful.