A system and method for loop timing update of energy efficient physical layer devices using subset communication techniques. During a quiet period during which a subset of communication channels are transitioned from an active mode to a low-power mode, circuitry in the active channel can be designed to track, on behalf of the inactive channels, the phase drift due to the frequency offset. This tracking of the frequency estimation error would reduce the time required to perform a timing update for the communication channels when transitioning back to the active mode.