An access terminal acquires a multi-carrier radio network on an acquisition channel, receives a list of available channels from the network, and hashes to a channel on which the access terminal attempts to establish a session. If the access terminal fails to establish the session, the access terminal selects a new acquisition channel from an acquisition table other than the acquisition table from which the original acquisition channel was selected. The access terminal then repeats the above steps in order to attempt to establish a session, beginning with acquisition on the new acquisition channel. In this way, the number of unsuccessful session establishment attempts resulting from back end network failures is typically reduced, shortening the time to successful session establishment, reducing power consumption by the access terminal, and lessening interference due to unsuccessful attempts to establish a session.