A femto base station (BS) maintains two different timings: a femto BS downlink timing and a femto BS uplink timing. A femto base station's uplink reference timing is based on the macro uplink timing being used by one or more UE devices in the local vicinity of the femto BS. In some embodiments, the femto BS synchronizes its femto uplink timing to the macro uplink timing being used by the closest UE device transmitting uplink signals to the macro BS. In other embodiments, the femto BS determines its femto base station uplink timing based on one or more uplink signals from UE devices in its vicinity transmitting to the macro BS. In various embodiments, femto cell uplink signals and macro cell uplink signals are received at a femto cell BS in synchronization. This approach facilitates frequency division multiplexing (FDM) in the uplink between a macro cell and a femto cell.