Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate avoidance of duplicative resource allocation and/or erroneous service charges via unambiguously indicating an entity responsible for quality of service (QoS) initiation. In one example, an indication is provided to a mobile device to indicate a preference for network-initiated QoS or a preference for device-initiated QoS. QoS for a data flow can be established in accordance with the indication. For instance, the mobile device initiates QoS when the indication specifies a preference for device-initiated QoS while a network establishes QoS when the indication specifies a preference for network-initiated QoS.