Aspects of the present disclosure provide apparatus, methods, processing systems, and computer readable mediums for configuring, based on capability of the user equipment (UE) in switching among multiple component carriers (CCs), the UEs for communications with multiple activated CCs. For example, the network may configure the UE with a number of activated CCs that exceeds a number of CCs supported by the UE for simultaneous connections, such that the UE quickly switches among the activated CCs. The UE can thus effectively utilize more operating bands than the number allowed for simultaneous connections using inter-band carrier aggregations.