Methods, systems, and devices are described for wireless communication at a UE. A user equipment (UE) may utilize orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) for demodulating downlink messages and a combination of Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) and single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) for uplink modulation. The uplink modulation process may include generating a symbol vector with an M-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT), filtering the symbol vector with a frequency domain Gaussian filter, generating a sample vector from the filtered symbol vector utilizing an inverse DFT, and modulating the sample vector utilizing GMSK. In some cases, the uplink modulation may be based on a narrowband resource allocation received from a base station.