A particular kind of component carrier that may be used as a secondary cell in an LTE system is a new type carrier that has reduced or eliminated legacy control signaling such as the omission of CRSs. Alternative techniques are described for performing timing and frequency synchronization in the downlink between an eNB and a UE when CRSs are not present in a component carrier. These techniques involve using either channel state information reference signals or UE-specific reference signals.