Described is a user equipment (UE) that is connected to a network component, the user equipment and the network component configured with a carrier aggregation functionality. The UE performs a method that includes determining a primary component carrier and at least one secondary component carrier associated with the carrier aggregation functionality of the user equipment, determining a component carrier quality measurement (CQM) metric for each of the component carriers, when an uplink data packet is capable of being transmitted over the secondary component carrier, selecting one of the primary component carrier and the at least one secondary component carrier based on the CQM metrics, generating measurement data indicative of the selected component carrier to increase a probability to transmit the uplink data packet over the selected component carrier and transmitting the measurement data to the network component.