A method for operating a user equipment in a wireless communication network, the method comprising: monitoring, by the user equipment, transmissions on a plurality of physical downlink control channels, PDCCHS; and in response to said transmissions, generating, by the user equipment, an acknowledge/negative acknowledge, ACK/NACK, signal comprising a plurality of bits, wherein the plurality of bits includes a discontinuous transmission, DTX, indicator bit, wherein the DTX indicator bit corresponds to one of: (a) an odd or even total number of NACKs corresponding to PDSCH decoding failures but not including any NACKs corresponding to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH; (b) an odd or even number of component carriers where all of the HARQ feedback bits for a component carrier consist of NACKs corresponding to a PDSCH decoding failure; (c) an odd or even number of HARQ feedback bits corresponding to the decoding failure of the associated data codeword; (d) an even or odd number of PDCCHs successfully decoded if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is less than or equal to a threshold T, and whether or not at least one NACK corresponds to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH otherwise if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is greater than the threshold T; (e) a bit to be combined with additional ceiling (log2(M-1))-1 bits, with M being the number of component carriers, and the combination of bits indicating the number of component carriers for which a PDCCH was not successfully decoded. monitoring, by the user equipment, transmissions on a plurality of physical downlink control channels, PDCCHS; and in response to said transmissions, generating, by the user equipment, an acknowledge/negative acknowledge, ACK/NACK, signal comprising a plurality of bits, wherein the plurality of bits includes a discontinuous transmission, DTX, indicator bit, wherein the DTX indicator bit corresponds to one of: (a) an odd or even total number of NACKs corresponding to PDSCH decoding failures but not including any NACKs corresponding to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH; (b) an odd or even number of component carriers where all of the HARQ feedback bits for a component carrier consist of NACKs corresponding to a PDSCH decoding failure; (c) an odd or even number of HARQ feedback bits corresponding to the decoding failure of the associated data codeword; (d) an even or odd number of PDCCHs successfully decoded if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is less than or equal to a threshold T, and whether or not at least one NACK corresponds to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH otherwise if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is greater than the threshold T; (e) a bit to be combined with additional ceiling (log2(M-1))-1 bits, with M being the number of component carriers, and the combination of bits indicating the number of component carriers for which a PDCCH was not successfully decoded. (a) an odd or even total number of NACKs corresponding to PDSCH decoding failures but not including any NACKs corresponding to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH; (b) an odd or even number of component carriers where all of the HARQ feedback bits for a component carrier consist of NACKs corresponding to a PDSCH decoding failure; (c) an odd or even number of HARQ feedback bits corresponding to the decoding failure of the associated data codeword; (d) an even or odd number of PDCCHs successfully decoded if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is less than or equal to a threshold T, and whether or not at least one NACK corresponds to failure to successfully decode a PDCCH otherwise if the number of NACKs included within the plurality of bits is greater than the threshold T; (e) a bit to be combined with additional ceiling (log2(M-1))-1 bits, with M being the number of component carriers, and the combination of bits indicating the number of component carriers for which a PDCCH was not successfully decoded.