Techniques to manage heterogeneous carrier types are described. User equipment may comprise a processor circuit and a network control component for execution on the processor circuit to locate a synchronization signal (SS) and a cell-specific reference signal (CRS) in a physical resource block (PRB) pair of a long term evolution (LTE) system, the PRB pair having a physical signal pattern for a first carrier type, the physical signal pattern for the first carrier type to have a same number of defined positions between the SS and the CRS within the PRB pair as a physical signal pattern for a second carrier type. Other embodiments are described and claimed.