This paper presents a scalable and efficient quota-based admission control scheme for the 3rd generation (3G) operator's IP backbone network, where quota denotes a chunk of bandwidth. This research is motivated by the 3G operator's need for guaranteeing end-to-end IP QoS of mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-server multimedia sessions. In the proposed scheme, the quota size of a path implies the proper amount of allocated and released resources on the path condition. Employing the quota size makes the job of allocating or releasing resources at nodes in a path simple so that it becomes scalable. Moreover, with this simple scheme, an edge node can be allowed not only to initiate the allocation/release request but also to perform admission control function. To maximize the efficiency, the path quota size varies depending on the bottleneck link condition in the path. In high offered load, the proposed scheme decreases the path quota size and retains higher utilization while it requires lower signaling cost than the fixed scheme using a fixed size aggregation. As the load lessens, it increases the path quota size and reduces the signaling cost significantly.