DYNAMIC PACKET RE-ORDERING, DISCARDING, AND FLOW SWITCHING
A radio access network node transmits a packet discard indication to configure a user equipment with indications that the node may discard packets corresponding to an indicated flow or corresponding to a flow received via an indicated resource. The packet discard indication configures the user equipment not to send a negative acknowledgement that a packet was not received via an indicated flow upon receiving an out-of-sequence packet corresponding to the indicated flow. The packet discard indication may configure the user equipment to decode a packet discarded from a flow indicated as being discarding-enabled via an indicated resource of an alternative target flow that may have a different quality-of-service, latency, or reliability than the flow to which the discarded packet belongs. The node may offload transmission of a packet discarded from a discarding-enabled flow to a flow indicated as an alternative target flow designated for offloading in the packet discard indication.