A method and system for connection management in a wireless data network, such as a 1xEV-DO network adds connections to new network sectors upon receipt of a connection request from an active terminal, but removes data connections that the active terminal requests to be dropped only after confirmation from the active terminal that a channel allocation message has been received and applied. The active network maintains an active set of connections that is at least as large as the active set maintained by the active terminal and does not initiate a connection termination if no confirmation of the channel allocation message is received. This allows for a reduction in the number of dropped connections.