Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate initializing scrambling sequence generation in a wireless communication environment. Scrambling sequence generation can be initialized (e.g., at a start of each subframe, . . . ) at least in part as a function of a type of Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI). Further, the type of RNTI utilized for initialization of scrambling sequence generation can correspond to a transmission type (e.g., whether the transmission is related to system information, paging, random access response, scheduled transmission or contention resolution message of a random access procedure, SPS traffic, regular unicast traffic, . . . ). Moreover, the scrambling sequence can be leveraged to scramble data for transmission over a data channel (e.g., Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), . . . ). Further, a receiving wireless communication apparatus can utilize a descrambling sequence similarly yielded based upon the type of RNTI corresponding to the transmission type.