An example method is provided in one example embodiment and includes intercepting a setup request for a session via a small cell network portion associated with a wide area network (WAN) instance, wherein the WAN instance comprises the small cell network portion and an enterprise network portion and wherein the small cell network portion and the enterprise network portion are interconnected to a service provider network; classifying the session to a particular WAN priority queue, wherein a plurality of WAN priority queues are configured for the WAN instance; determining whether the particular WAN priority queue has available bandwidth for the session; allocating bandwidth for the particular WAN priority queue if the particular WAN priority queue has available bandwidth; and permitting the session to be established if the particular WAN priority queue has available bandwidth.