Flow control

Multi-hop backhauling DownLink (DL) hop-by-hop flow control within 5th Generation (5G) New Radio (NR) and NR-based relay Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) networks to prevent congestion. Flow control is provided in networks comprising a base station (e.g. IAB Donor node) connected to the core network and a network node connected to the base station, either directly or via another node, wherein a parent node may not know the downlink buffer status of a child node. The method comprises reporting, by a network node, sending flow control feedback information (e.q. buffer load feedback information) to a child node of the network node. The flow control feedback information comprises one or more of the following: total amount of data in the buffers; buffer occupancy; available buffer size; and a change in any of the above parameters compared to a previous report sent. The reporting may be triggered according to polling by the parent node triggered by reception of a specific routing layer (e.g. BAP layer) Control Element or reporting triggered when buffer occupancy exceeds a threshold. The reporting may be bearer specific, or for radio bearer groups or for a subset of radio bearers or backhaul links.