A low complexity user equipment (UE) may be in communication with another UE (e.g., with a premium UE or more capable UE) via a device-to-device communication link (e.g., via sidelink), and the low complexity UE may leverage the device-to-device link to improve (e.g., simplify, expedite, etc.) random access procedures performed by the low complexity UE. For example, a low complexity UE may request contention free random access (CFRA) resources via the device-to-device link with another UE. Another device (e.g., another UE in device-to-device communication with the low complexity UE) may receive the request from the low complexity UE and forward the request to the network (e.g., to a base station). The network may then configure CFRA resources for the low complexity UE. Upon receiving the CFRA configuration, the low complexity UE may perform a random access procedure (e.g., a CFRA procedure) with the network (e.g., with the base station) accordingly.