Method and apparatus for sending and receiving information on a wireless network

An apparatus comprising:

• a controller that controls the operations of the apparatus;
• and
• a transceiver coupled to the controller, where the transceiver
• establishes a radio resource control connection with a wireless wide area network base station to enter a radio resource control connected state,
• sends an uplink grant request message using a predefined dedicated random access channel preamble while in the radio resource control connected state,
• receives an uplink grant from the base station, and
• transmits a radio resource control message in response to receiving the uplink grant.

A method comprising:

• establishing, by a user equipment, a radio resource control connection with a wireless wide area network base station to enter a radio resource control connected state;
• sending, by the user equipment, an uplink grant request message using a predefined dedicated random access channel preamble while in the radio resource control connected state, where the uplink grant request message requests resources to at least accommodate a system information request;
• receiving an uplink grant from the base station;
• and
• transmitting a radio resource control message including a system information request in response to receiving the uplink grant.