Flexible carrier downlink and uplink pairing for advanced networks

A method, comprising:

• signaling, by a base station device comprising a processor, to a user equipment device, a master information block comprising an indication that the base station device supports flexible uplink and downlink pairing;
• receiving, by the base station device, an indication from the user equipment device that indicates a group of uplink bands supported by the user equipment device and a group of downlink bands supported by the user equipment device;
• and
• selecting, by the base station device, an uplink band of the group of uplink bands and a downlink band of the group of downlink bands, wherein the uplink band and the downlink band are not adjacent to each other and are asymmetric in bandwidth.

A user equipment device, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
• transmitting a first indicator to a base station device, wherein the first indicator indicates that the user equipment device supports flexible uplink and downlink pairing;
• in response to the transmitting, receiving, from the base station device, a second indicator that indicates uplink sub-bands and downlink sub-bands supported by the base station device;
• and
• selecting an uplink sub-band of the uplink sub-bands supported and selecting a downlink band of the downlink sub-bands supported for a communication link with the base station device, wherein the uplink sub-band and the downlink sub-band are associated with different bands and are asymmetric in bandwidth.