User equipment (1100, 1200) supporting multi-carrier operation is adapted to identify whether it is experiencing an excessive interference level on a downlink carrier, which interference may be due to an aggressor carrier. Based on this information, the user equipment deactivates one or more of the downlink carriers so that an adequate downlink quality can be maintained for at least some of the carriers. In an example method, a plurality of activated downlink carriers including at least two non-adjacent downlink carriers in a frequency band are received (1010). The user equipment monitors (1020) quality of at least a subset of the plurality of activated downlink carriers, and determines (1030) that the quality of at least one of the monitored carriers is worse than a predetermined threshold. In response, the user equipment deactivates (1040) one or more of the activated downlink carriers.