Radio node device and backhaul connection method thereof

1. A backhaul connection method for a radio node device, executable in the radio node device, comprising:

receiving a radio access network issued configuration message requesting multi-connectivity capability of the radio node device;

providing two wireless communication channels in parallel as a part of the wireless backhaul channel to a radio access network entity in response to the configuration message;

adapting the radio node device to detect a backhaul change event associated with the wireless backhaul channel, and trigger route selection for the wireless backhaul channel in response to the backhaul change event;

performing the route selection by the radio node device performs by selecting a relay node among a plurality of relay nodes as a next hop node based on metrics of the plurality of relay nodes, wherein the metrics of the plurality of relay nodes comprise a first measurement of unused subscribed data associated with a first subscriber of a first relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, and a second measurement of unused subscribed data associated with a second subscriber of a second relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, the radio node device selects the first relay node as the next hop node when the first measurement of unused subscribed data is greater than the second measurement of unused subscribed data.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising utilizing the radio node device as a mobile terminal and an intermediate node in the wireless backhaul channel.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein radio resources allocated to the wireless backhaul channel of the radio node device is network controllable, and the method further comprising allocating the radio resources to the radio node device a portion for the wireless backhaul channel and a portion for wireless local connections.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising adapting the radio node device to support a network slice instance requested by a remote user equipment device according to a service type associated with the remote user equipment device.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising adapting the radio node device to support a radio access network slice instance and a core network slice instance requested by the remote user equipment device according to a service type associated with the remote user equipment device.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising connecting the radio node device to one or multiple network slice instances according to the received configuration message.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing the radio node device to support one relay node slice instance or multiple relay node slice instances according to the configuration message.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing a first channel of the two wireless communication channels for transmission of user plane traffic of a remote user equipment device including at least one user plane data packet of the remote user equipment device, and establishing a second channel of the two wireless communication channels for transmission of a duplicated copy of the user plane traffic.

9. A backhaul connection method for a radio node device, executable in the radio node device, comprising:

receiving a radio access network issued configuration message requesting multi-connectivity capability of the radio node device;

providing two wireless communication channels in parallel as a part of a wireless backhaul channel to a radio access network entity in response to the configuration message; and

utilizing the radio node device as a mobile terminal and an intermediate node in the wireless backhaul channel, wherein the intermediate node is operable to provide a local wireless connection to a remote user equipment device;

detecting a backhaul change event associated with the wireless backhaul channel, and triggering route selection for the wireless backhaul channel in response to the backhaul change event;

performing the route selection by selecting a relay node among a plurality of relay nodes as a next hop node based on metrics of the plurality of relay nodes, wherein the metrics of the plurality of relay nodes comprise a first measurement of unused subscribed data associated with a first subscriber of a first relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, and a second measurement of unused subscribed data associated with a second subscriber of a second relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, the radio node device selects the first relay node as the next hop node when the first measurement of unused subscribed data is greater than the second measurement of unused subscribed data.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising utilizing the radio node device as a part of a multi-hop wireless backhaul connection serving the remote user equipment device according to a service type associated with the remote user equipment device.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

utilizing the radio node device as a part of topologically redundant wireless backhaul connections serving the remote user equipment device according to a service type associated with the remote user equipment device; and

utilizing the radio node device for radio resource aggregation according to the service type associated with the remote user equipment device.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising utilizing the radio node device as a part of a primary backhaul path or a secondary backhaul path among the topologically redundant wireless backhaul connections serving the remote user equipment device according to a configuration message from the remote user equipment device.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising utilizing the radio node device as a part of a primary backhaul path or a secondary backhaul path among the topologically redundant wireless backhaul connections serving the remote user equipment device according to a configuration message from the radio access network entity.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising utilizing the radio node device as a part of a primary backhaul path or a secondary backhaul path among the topologically redundant wireless backhaul connections serving the remote user equipment device according to a configuration message from a third party application server through a service capability exposure function (SCEF).

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein the backhaul change event includes at lease least one of a cell identifier change event and a signal strength variation event.

16. The method of claim 9 , wherein the metrics of the plurality of relay nodes comprise a first ping response time measurement associated with a first subscriber of a first relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, and a second ping response time measurement associated with a second subscriber of a second relay node among the plurality of relay nodes, the radio node device selects the first relay node as the next hop node when the first ping response time measurement is less than the second ping response time measurement.