Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. In some systems, a user equipment (UE) may support multiple radio access technologies (RATs). The UE may communicate using both a Long Term Evolution (LTE) connection for control signaling and a New Radio (NR) connection for data signaling in a non-standalone (NSA) mode. However, if the UE uses a data rate below a threshold, the NR connection may be inefficient. To reduce processing overhead, the UE may fall back to using the LTE connection for data communications. For example, the UE may delay or abort adding an NR connection based on the data rate. In some examples, the UE may transmit a fake report or a fake uplink message to trigger dropping an NR connection. Additionally or alternatively, the UE may indicate a preferred mode of operation to the network indicating a preference for communicating data via an LTE connection.