The invention refers to a method (33) for operating a wireless communication network (11) or a network element (13) thereof, the network (11) comprising a plurality of baseband processing devices (13). In order to allow for performing baseband processing tasks by multiple cooperating baseband processing devices (13) such that the real time constraints are met, it is proposed that the method (33) comprise determining (39) a delay metric (RTT_BBU) that depends on a network delay between the network element (13) and at least one baseband processing device (13) of the plurality of baseband processing devices (13), wherein the delay metric (RTT_BBU) is determined before an event (e) occurs that triggers allocation or reallocation of processing resources of the at least one baseband processing device (13), and selecting (55, 65) the at least one baseband processing device of the plurality of baseband processing devices for remote processing depending on the delay metric (RTT_BBU).