Repurposing mobility management with virtual radio in software radio access networks

A method, comprising:

• determining to reduce a load on a first server hosting a first mobile network distributed unit (DU) for providing a first virtual cell to a plurality of user devices via a radio unit;
• identifying a second server hosting a second mobile network DU providing a second virtual cell via the radio unit;
• and
• handing over the plurality of user devices from the first virtual cell to the second virtual cell, wherein the first virtual cell and the second virtual cell have a same center frequency and are assigned different frequency domain resources.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to:

• determine to reduce a load on a first server hosting a first mobile network distributed unit (DU) for providing a first virtual cell to a plurality of user devices via a radio unit;
• identify a second server hosting a second mobile network DU providing a second virtual cell via the radio unit;
• and
• hand over the plurality of user devices from the first virtual cell to the second virtual cell, wherein the first virtual cell and the second virtual cell have a same center frequency and are assigned different frequency domain resources.