Streams of data traffic from various applications may be handled by a network-aware adapter module as part of a greater platform for filtering communicating the streams to intelligent network components. A distinguishing factor associated with a given data stream may be determined and used as a basis for selecting a QoS policy setting for the given data stream. The selected QoS policy setting may then be signaled to a media access control layer to take advantage of the QoS function of the embedded underlying active media type that is active and optimal (both from technical and business perspective) to carry out the communication for the application.