Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, identifying a communication device communicatively coupled to a serving base station, requesting a device type associated with the communication device from the serving base station, and determining the communication device comprises an unmanned aerial vehicle based on the device type. Further embodiments can include obtaining a geolocation of the communication device based on the communication device comprising the unmanned aerial vehicle, generating a customized radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message, which includes a reportCGI object that involves setting a discontinuous sleep state timer, which stops the data transmission and reception of the communication device with the serving base station. During this discontinuous sleep state timer, the communication device disconnects to its serving base station to read and decode the ECGI of base station associated with neighboring cells. Other embodiments are disclosed.