With the assumption that a network slice has been provided to a requesting service provider, method of FIG. 3 will be described hereinafter.

At S300, an IP/data packet originating from and/or destined for the end devices (Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobile devices, etc.) and/or core network elements, is received at the network of servers 106.

At S310, depending on the source and destination of the received data packets, the RAN SD i-Switching controller designates one of the servers (e.g., server 106-1) within the network of servers 106 to perform first modification of the received IP/data packet (depending on whether the IP/data packet is received at the network of servers 106 from the RRHs 104 or from the EPCs 108.

Thereafter, the designated server (e.g., server 106-1), via implementation of the appropriate one of the radio and backhaul protocol stacks, performs first modification on the received data packets. For example, when an IP/data packet is received at the network of servers 106 from one of the user devices 102 via one of the RRHs 104, the server 106-1 performs the first modification by executing the computer-readable instructions corresponding to a radio protocol stack. On the other hand, when an IP/data packet is received at the server 106-1 from the EPC 108 side of the network, the server 106-1 performs the first modification by executing the computer-readable instructions corresponding to a backhaul protocol stack.