Systems and methods are disclosed for receiving a request at a packet gateway to allocate a new bearer for a mobile device on a wireless telecommunications network; identifying, at the packet gateway, existing bearers that have a quality of service (QoS) that can be reduced without dropping the existing bearers; reducing, at the packet gateway, the QoS of the existing bearers; reclaiming resources at the packet gateway that were previously in use by the existing bearers; and allocating the new bearer for the mobile device using the reclaimed resources at the packet gateway without causing any of the existing bearers to be disconnected, wherein the existing bearers have a lower priority than the new bearer, and wherein the existing bearers have previously been designated as capable of being preempted.