Techniques are provided for frequency and/or timing synchronization of a small base station with a network. In one example, small base station may be configured to detect a macro signal of a macro base station, and set a frequency reference based at least in part on the macro signal, in response to the macro signal being available in a different band than that for the small base station. The small base station may be configured to set the frequency reference based at least in part on a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal, in response to detecting that the different band macro signal is not available.