Flexible software-defined radio access network architecture with slicing support and methods for use therewith

Abstract

A radio access network (RAN) system comprises a plurality of capsules that operate in parallel to cooperatively perform RAN stack operations, each capsule utilizing a processor and a memory configured to perform a corresponding component of the RAN stack operations, wherein the plurality of capsules are configured to support slicing functionality to separately process different types of signals; wherein the different types of signals correspond to different data flows, wherein each data flow of the different data flows serves as a pipe to transfer user data from one or more applications in accordance with a corresponding quality of service requirement and wherein the RAN stack operations result in: communicating backhaul communications with a core communication network; communicating fronthaul communications with a plurality of radio units configured to engage in wireless communications with a plurality of user equipment (UEs) via a radio channel of a radio network; converting, in accordance with a communication standard, received fronthaul communications from the plurality of radio units into backhaul communications transmitted to the core communications network; and converting, in accordance with the communication standard, received backhaul communications from the core communications network into fronthaul communications transmitted to the plurality of radio units.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.