There are provided measures for enabling/realizing decoupling of the control plane and the user plane in a radio access network. Such measures exemplarily comprise respective entities which are operable in a radio access network of a communication system and their respective operations, wherein a control/user plane entity provides control/user plane functionality in the radio access network for controlling control/user plane connectivity of at least one terminal to the core network of the communication system via the radio access network, and establish/provide a control/user plane connection to at least one user/control plane apparatus configured to provide user/control plane functionality in the radio access network for realizing user/control connectivity of the at least one terminal to the core network of the communication system via the radio access network.