Mechanisms to provide independent DRX (discontinuous reception) functionalities for individual carriers of a multi-carrier wireless network (200) are described. DRX is a higher layer functionality indicating which TTIs (transmission time intervals) a user equipment (220) needs to read for control signals. Operating in the DRX cycle allows the user equipment (220) to reduce battery consumption. A connection is established between a base station (210) and the user equipment (220) over a plurality of carriers, where for each carrier, an independent DRX cycle is established. The plurality of carriers include anchor carriers which can carry commands from the base station (210). The anchor carriers have shorter DRX cycles than the non-anchor carriers. When a large amount of download data is to be transferred, the DRX cycles of multiple carriers are overridden and used for transfer to achieve fast download rates. The override commands are sent from the base station (210) to the user equipment (220) prior to the transfer.