A system acquisition is initiated to perform inter radio access technology (IRAT) measurement. A waiting period of time is provided before aborting the system acquisition. The period of time is adjustable based on at least one metric. The metric can be a frequency of available measurement gaps, a total number of available measurement gaps, and/or a length of each measurement gap within a subframe. The metric could also be an absolute signal strength of a single neighbor cell and/or a relative signal strength between neighbor cells. The metric could also be a user equipment (UE) measured signal strength compared to a network indicated threshold value for triggering an IRAT measurement report. The metric could also be a percentage of a tone that falls within a measurement gap.