Described is a UE to communicate with an eNB on a network, the UE comprising: an antenna to receive messaging from eNB indicating switching to 256-QAM scheme from an existing non-256-QAM scheme; and a table component for storing soft channel bits based on Nsoft such that the number and value of the soft channel bits for using the 256-QAM scheme is substantially equal to the number and value of the soft channel bits when the UE is not using the 256-QAM scheme. Described is an eNB comprising: an antenna to transmit messaging to a UE indicating switching to 256-QAM scheme from an existing non-256-QAM scheme; and an encoder to encode data using memory usage size based on Nsoft such that the number and value of the Nsoft for using the 256-QAM scheme is substantially equal to the number and value of the Nsoft when the eNB is not using the 256-QAM scheme.