The communications manager 815 may receive a preemption monitoring indication in a grant in a first downlink control channel, where the grant is for an uplink or downlink transmission, and the preemption monitoring indication indicates whether the UE is to monitor a second downlink control channel for a preemption indication and determine, based on the preemption monitoring indication, whether to monitor the second downlink control channel for the preemption indication. The communications manager 815 may also receive a control message indicating whether the UE is to interpret future indications received from a base station and pertaining to uplink transmissions on a carrier as either preemption indications or permission indications, where a preemption indication indicates that an uplink transmission is to be preempted for another transmission and a permission indication indicates that the UE has permission to transmit an uplink transmission, monitor for a preemption indication or a permission indication in a second downlink control channel based on the control message, receive an uplink grant in a first downlink control channel for an uplink transmission on the carrier to the base station, and transmit the uplink transmission on the carrier based on monitoring for the preemption indication or the permission indication. The communications manager 815 may be an example of aspects of the communications manager 1110 described herein.