The above described example embodiments for separating the radio and backhaul protocol stacks and managing communications therebetween via the RAN SD i-Switching Controller, provides several advantages. The first advantage is that it provides a highly flexible platform to implement diverse features for future mobile networks. For example, by virtue of software defined networking, network slices may be created as VNF Infrastructures (VNFI) such that RAN sharing may be implemented without a significant effort and the manageability thereof would be improved to realize programmable RAN sharing. Accordingly, Internet of Things (IoT) network slices may be dedicated for 3^rd IoT service providers. For example, the tight coupling of the radio and backhaul protocol stacks of e-NodeBs (discussed as a disadvantage of the currently available schemes) may be eliminated such that the number of radio and backhaul protocol stacks implemented by the server 106 no longer has to be the same and may be different, allowing the EPC core resources to scale independent of network 100 radio resources.

The second advantage is that any dynamic local breakout mechanism may be implemented in more efficient way, e.g., ultra-low latency IoT services at edge cloud. Depending on QoS/Quality of Experience (QoE) or mobility, networks of example embodiments described herein may be easily adapted.

The third advantage is that networks according to example embodiments described herein, may also be applied to a transparent Public Safety LTE Isolated Operation for Public Safety (PS-LTE IOPS) service, in case of disaster. In this case, the SDN capability immediately offloads the EPC connectivity to local PS-LTE EPC and dynamically provision any specific services (e.g., for first responders).