Aspects of the present disclosure provided techniques that may be applied in systems to allow for communication over a control channel utilizing a relatively narrowband (e.g., six physical resource blocks) based search space. An exemplary method, performed, for example, by a machine type communication (MTC) UE, generally includes identifying, within a subframe, a first search space to monitor for a control channel that occupies a first number of physical resource blocks (PRBs) that represents a narrowband within a system bandwidth comprising a plurality of narrowbands and monitoring at least the first search space for the control channel, wherein the control channel comprises broadcast control information.