The invention relates to a service layer southbound interface and quality of service. Existing resource reservation techniques are inefficient for M2M communications. In an example embodiment described herein, a system comprises a service layer server that resides on a service layer and a control plane node that resides on an access network, wherein the service layer server communicates with the control plane node via a control plane interface. The control plane interface can be used to configure quality of service (QoS) policies (rules) that are based on an object that is being addressed. Inthis context, for example, an object may be a memory location or value. For example, the service layer may configure one or more QoS rules for the access network based on the object by sending a QoS provisioning message that includes one or more parameters to the control plane node. The control plane node may determine the object that is identified in the one or more QoS rules, and the QoS rules may be distributed to one or more routers that may be used to access the object. The access network may apply the one or more QoS rules in accordance with the parameters.