User equipments (UEs) will monitor each frequency in a multicarrier wireless radio access network for at least one control channel that may contain downlink data allocations or other such messages from the network. This monitoring may be dynamically controlled with a physical layer indication received by the UE from a node B that designates a number of carrier frequencies of all of the carrier frequencies of the network. In response to this physical layer indication, the UE will monitor at least one control channel in the designated carrier frequency or frequencies.