Apparatuses and methods for supporting operation of narrow bandwidth devices within a broadband network are described herein. A user equipment (UE) may retrieve control channels within a narrow bandwidth device region of a downlink subframe. The control channels may be received in a subcarrier of a new carrier type (NCT) implemented in accordance with a standard of the 3GPP family of standards. Cell-specific reference signals may be excluded on the NCT subcarrier.