A method to speed up uplink data access during a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration procedure is proposed. UE first sends an RRC request, and in response receives an RRC reconfiguration message from BS. UE then decodes the RRC reconfiguration message and performs reconfiguration. UE also waits for UL grant for transmitting RRC reconfiguration complete with UL data if available. In one embodiment, BS provides the UL grant in a common search space while UE is performing the reconfiguration, and UE does not need to wait the UL grant until after the reconfiguration is done. In other words, the reconfiguration and the UL grant occurs in parallel, which reduces access delay for UL data. In an alternative embodiment, BS provides UL grant in RRC reconfiguration message, so that UE does not have to receive UL grant while performing the reconfiguration.