Various communication systems may benefit from the appropriate selection of aspects of operation of the communication system. For example, certain wireless communication systems, such as fifth generation (5G), long term evolution advanced (LTE-A), and wireless local area network (WLAN) communication systems, may benefit from appropriate random access preamble selection. A method can include determining that a user equipment should consider at least one beam-specific parameter. The method can also include indicating to the user equipment to consider the at least one beam-specific parameter.