Methods and apparatuses for neighbor discovery and wireless inter-connection in a wireless communication system. A method for operating a base station (BS) in the wireless communication network includes generating measurement information regarding neighboring BSs of the BS in the wireless communication network; determining a first parent BS of the neighboring BSs to connect to based on the measurement information; performing an initial access procedure with the first parent BS to connect to the first parent BS; identifying an end-to-end route for the BS for transfer of data between a user equipment (UE) and a gateway via the wireless communication network; and transferring the data between the gateway and the UE based on the identified end-to-end route.