A system and method for accelerating network selection by a wireless user equipment (UE) device without having to perform a full band scan (FBS). In one exemplary embodiment, the wireless UE device is operable to scan in a network environment for discovering at least one network. Depending upon geographic region information decoded from the discovered network's identity information, a logic structure in the wireless UE device is operable to determine a subset of appropriate frequency data for selective scanning by said wireless UE device. Using the subset of appropriate frequency data, a selective scanning is performed for locating a network by the wireless UE device.