Referring to FIG. 2A, the UE 300 obtains a carrier aggregation (CA) capability 202 of the UE 300. The CA capability 202 includes a list of available CCs 220 (CC1-CCn) supported by the UE 300 at the current location 430 for simultaneous communication with the carrier aggregation capable network 100. For instance, the UE 300 may aggregate the available CCs 220 to communicate simultaneously with at least one eNB 102 of the network 100. In the example shown, the UE 300 performs a cell search to identify at least one eNB 102 and the eNB 102 may provide the CA capability 202 to the UE 300 by allocating the list of available CCs 220 to the UE 300 in scenarios when operation by the UE 300 the CA mode are possible/suitable. For instance, the eNB 102 may elect to initiate the CA mode for the UE 300 when a communication load in the UE 300 is high and/or when a traffic level at the eNB 102 is low.
