A vehicle wireless unit and a method of operating the same. The vehicle wireless unit and method may be used to temporarily halt a non-interrupted data flow between the vehicle wireless unit and a cellular network over a first cellular link according to a first radio access technology (RAT), which purposely causes the vehicle wireless unit to enter an idle mode and results in the first cellular link being released. Once the first cellular link is released, the vehicle wireless unit and method may search for and, if found, establish a second cellular link with the cellular network according to a higher-order radio access technology (RAT). The vehicle wireless unit and method may be particularly useful with autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles.