A base station is configured to support communications with at least one user equipment (UE) configured for machine type communications (MTC). The base station includes processing circuitry configured to determine a transmission scheme based on a category of the at least one UE. The base station also includes a transmitter configured to transmit, using a determined transmission scheme, a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in a reduced bandwidth to the at least one UE. The UE includes a receiver configured to receive a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in a reduced bandwidth from at least one base station. The UE also includes processing circuitry configured to determine a transmission scheme utilized by at least one base station.