According to some embodiments, a method of determining a modulation coding scheme in a wireless network comprises receiving a CQI index, wherein the CQI index comprises a four-bit value associated with a channel quality of a wireless signal and identifying an entry in a CQI table based on the CQI index. The CQI table comprises: a first contiguous plurality of table entries associated with low SINR, each entry based on a first sampling grid; a second contiguous plurality of table entries associated with medium SINR, each entry based on a second sampling grid; and a third contiguous plurality of table entries associated with high SINR, each entry based on a third sampling grid. The method further comprises determining a modulation coding scheme based on the identified entry in the CQI table and encoding a transmission block according to the determined modulation coding scheme.