Various techniques for narrowband communications in a wireless communications network are provided. Narrowband communications may be transmitted using a single resource block (RB) of a number of RBs used for wideband communications. In order to provide for efficient device discovery and synchronization using narrowband communications, a synchronization signal, such as a primary synchronization signal (PSS) or secondary synchronization signal (SSS), may be transmitted within the single resource block. The synchronization signal may be transmitted, for example, using multiple orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols within the single RB. A common reference signal (CRS) may also be present in the single resource block, which may puncture the synchronization signal, in some examples. In other examples, the synchronization signal may be mapped to non-CRS symbols of the single resource block.