A computer-implemented method for operating a user equipment (UE) includes measuring a channel quality of a channel associated with a first uplink channel and a second uplink channel, determining that the channel quality is between a first channel quality threshold and a second channel quality threshold, and based thereon, selecting either the first uplink channel or the second uplink channel for an uplink transmission in accordance with a current location of the UE, historical information of successful uplink channel access attempts, and a distance threshold, and performing an uplink random access procedure in accordance with the selected uplink channel.