Techniques for managing preamble transmission and processing on a shared communication medium are disclosed. An access point or an access terminal, for example, may generate a preamble for silencing communication on a communication medium with respect to an upcoming data transmission, configure the preamble to identify one or more target devices for the silencing, and transmit the preamble over the communication medium in advance of the data transmission. Conversely, the access point or the access terminal may receive a preamble (as a receiving device) over a communication medium, identify one or more target devices for silencing communication on the communication medium with respect to an upcoming data transmission based on the preamble, and selectively silence communication over the communication medium based on itself (as the receiving device) being among the one or more target devices.