An apparatus of a next generation NodeB (gNB) comprises one or more baseband processors to interconnect a gNB Central Unit control-plane entity (gNB-CU-CP) with a gNB Central Unit user-plane entity (gNB-CU-UP) via an E1 control plane interface and a gNB Distributed Unit (gNB-DU) via an F1 control plane interface. Rather than relying on multiple class-1 procedures initiated by gNB-CU-CP toward gNB-CU-UP and gNB-DU, the one or more baseband processors are configured to establish or modify a bearer context and to communicate data transport tunneling and/or packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) preservation status information for a specific user equipment (UE), utilizing the direct F1 user plane interface between gNB-DU and gNB-CU-UP to avoid relaying delay. The gNB can include a memory to store the bearer context and data transport tunneling information.