Flexible assignment of network functions for radio access

A network element for a wireless communication network, the network element being configured to allocate resources for supporting communications with a wireless device, the network element being further configured to:

• differentiate between synchronous network functions and asynchronous network functions, the synchronous and asynchronous network functions being associated with providing communication services to the wireless device, said synchronous network functions having requirements on processing timing which are strictly dependent on timing of a radio link used for communicating with the wireless device, and said asynchronous network functions having requirements on processing timing not strictly dependent on the timing of the radio link;
• and
• allocate resources of the wireless communication network for instantiation of a first network function based on whether the first network function is synchronous or asynchronous.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program comprising computer program instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry of a network element configured for operation in a wireless communication network and to support communications with a wireless device, configure the network element to:

• differentiate between synchronous network functions and asynchronous network functions, the synchronous and asynchronous network functions being associated with providing communication services to the wireless device, said synchronous network functions having requirements on processing timing which are strictly dependent on timing of a radio link used for communicating with the wireless device, and said asynchronous network functions having requirements on processing timing not strictly dependent on the timing of the radio link;
• and
• allocate resources of the wireless communication network for instantiation of a first network function based on whether the first network function is synchronous or asynchronous.

A method of resource allocation in a wireless communication network, for supporting communications with a wireless communication apparatus, said method comprising:

• differentiating between synchronous functions and asynchronous functions associated with providing communication services to the wireless communication apparatus, said synchronous functions having processing timings strictly dependent on timings of one or more radio links used for communicating with the wireless communication apparatus, and said asynchronous functions having processing timings not strictly dependent on the timings of the one or more radio links;
• and
• allocating resources for the synchronous functions according to an allocation scheme that restricts allocation of processing resources for the synchronous functions to a radio node or nodes used to provide the one or more radio links, and that does not restrict allocation of processing resources for the asynchronous functions to the radio node or nodes.