Intelligent backhaul radio

An intelligent backhaul radio comprising:

• one or more demodulator cores, wherein each demodulator core demodulates one or more receive symbol streams to produce a respective receive data interface stream,
• a plurality of receive radio frequency (RF) chains to convert from a plurality of receive RF signals to a plurality of respective receive chain output signals;
• a frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer, interposed between the one or more demodulator cores and the plurality of receive RF chains, to produce the one or more receive symbol streams provided to the one or more demodulator cores from the plurality of receive chain output signals;
• an antenna array comprising:
• a plurality of directive gain antenna elements;
• and
• one or more selectable RF connections that selectively couple certain of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements to certain of the plurality of receive RF chains, wherein the number of directive gain antenna elements that can be selectively coupled to receive RF chains exceeds the number of receive RF chains that can accept receive RF signals from the one or more selectable RF connections;
• a radio resource controller, wherein the radio resource controller sets or causes to be set the specific selective couplings between the certain of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements and the certain of the plurality of receive RF chains.