Receivers in a mobile device are configured to mitigate receiver overload and fully or nearly-fully utilize available spectrum for communication. Configuration is dictated at least in part by at least one of radio link quality or available receiver specifications, and it can be affected by the mobile device or a base station that serves the mobile device. Receiver configuration includes various spectrally asymmetric receivers that tune respective disparate portions of the available spectrum to maximize utilization thereof in the spectral regions prone to overload conditions. In severe overload conditions, a single receiver can be configured to operate in a frequency band spectrally adjacent to a sub-band that leads to overload conditions when employed for telecommunication. To improve performance, the single receiver configuration can be supplemented with at least one of transmit diversity operation, asymmetric multicarrier spreading, or downlink power boost of asymmetrical multicarrier spreading.