Techniques are described for wireless communication. One method includes allocating, in a downlink carrier including a plurality of resource blocks, a first set of resource elements for cell-specific reference signals (CRS) associated with communication with one or more communication devices of a first type; allocating resources of a resource block of the plurality of resource blocks to a narrow-band physical channel for communication with one or more communication devices of a second type, the allocated resources being rate-matched around the first set of resource elements and a second set of resource elements allocated to narrow-band CRS (NB-CRS) associated with communication with the one or more communication devices of the second type; and transmitting information to the one or more communication devices of the second type mapped to a subset of the allocated resources of the narrow-band physical channel.