Described are examples for providing cell level migration of physical layer processing in a virtualized base station. A system for operating virtualized base stations includes a plurality of physical layer (PHY) servers within a datacenter and a media access control (MAC) server. Each respective PHY server includes: a memory storing instructions and at least one processor coupled to the memory. The at least one processor is configured to perform physical layer radio access network processing for a cell at the respective PHY server. The MAC server includes a memory storing instructions and at least one processor coupled to the memory. The at least one processor is configured to migrate the physical layer radio access network processing for the cell from a first server of the plurality of PHY servers to a second server of the plurality of PHY servers within the datacenter at an inter-slot boundary.