Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described. A user equipment (UE) and base station may communicate using narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT) techniques or enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) in unlicensed spectrum. The UE may be an eMTC device or another device capable of communication without user direction. The UE may identify a geographic region and select a communication mode that is consistent with regulatory restrictions in that region. For example, in some cases, the communication mode may be based on using time division duplexing (TDD), using frequency hopping, or performing a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure at the base station. A frame structure for TDD may include LBT subframes, uplink portions, downlink portions, and special subframes for switching. The base station may perform LBT procedures in the LBT subframes. If frequency hopping is enabled, a configurable number of TDD frames may be grouped into a hopping frame block.