Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to a user equipment, an RNC, or an application operable in a wireless communications network and methods in which the user equipment can be transitioned into a dormant state controlled by an application driven scheme. According to the application driven scheme, a request is received from an active process at an application server to trigger a wireless device to enter a dormant state, and network traffic information corresponding to a time interval is received from a wireless device. If the network traffic information indicates that the active process is solely responsible for network traffic at a transport layer of the wireless device during the time interval, one or more commands are transmitted to the wireless device such that the wireless device enters the dormant state. Other aspects, embodiments, and features are also claimed and described.