A method comprising: receiving, by a user equipment, a first indication indicating a plurality of physical resource block sets; receiving a first control message in a beginning portion of a subframe, the first control message including information that indicates at least one selected physical resource block set from the plurality of physical resource block sets containing a second control message that is associated with a shortened transmission time interval; determining, from the first control message, the at least one selected physical resource block set from the plurality of physical resource block sets; and monitoring the second control message in the at least one selected physical resource block set of the shortened transmission time interval, wherein the duration of the shortened transmission time interval is smaller than the duration of the subframe; wherein: the shortened transmission time interval is a first shortened time interval; and the method further comprises: monitoring the second control message using a first configuration; and monitoring a third control message in the at least one selected physical resource block set of a second shortened transmission time interval using a second configuration; wherein the second configuration has at least one of: (i) a different number of decoding candidates than the first configuration; (ii) a different aggregation level of the decoding candidates than the first configuration; and (iii) a different set of resource blocks than the first configuration, and wherein the method further comprises: identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the first shortened transmission time interval; identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the second shortened time interval; and associating the corresponding one of the first and second configurations based on a presence or absence of common reference signals in the first and second shortened transmission time interval. receiving, by a user equipment, a first indication indicating a plurality of physical resource block sets; receiving a first control message in a beginning portion of a subframe, the first control message including information that indicates at least one selected physical resource block set from the plurality of physical resource block sets containing a second control message that is associated with a shortened transmission time interval; determining, from the first control message, the at least one selected physical resource block set from the plurality of physical resource block sets; and monitoring the second control message in the at least one selected physical resource block set of the shortened transmission time interval, wherein the duration of the shortened transmission time interval is smaller than the duration of the subframe; the shortened transmission time interval is a first shortened time interval; and the method further comprises: monitoring the second control message using a first configuration; and monitoring a third control message in the at least one selected physical resource block set of a second shortened transmission time interval using a second configuration; wherein the second configuration has at least one of: (i) a different number of decoding candidates than the first configuration; (ii) a different aggregation level of the decoding candidates than the first configuration; and (iii) a different set of resource blocks than the first configuration, and wherein the method further comprises: identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the first shortened transmission time interval; identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the second shortened time interval; and associating the corresponding one of the first and second configurations based on a presence or absence of common reference signals in the first and second shortened transmission time interval. monitoring the second control message using a first configuration; and monitoring a third control message in the at least one selected physical resource block set of a second shortened transmission time interval using a second configuration; wherein the second configuration has at least one of: (i) a different number of decoding candidates than the first configuration; (ii) a different aggregation level of the decoding candidates than the first configuration; and (iii) a different set of resource blocks than the first configuration, and wherein the method further comprises: identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the first shortened transmission time interval; identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the second shortened time interval; and associating the corresponding one of the first and second configurations based on a presence or absence of common reference signals in the first and second shortened transmission time interval. identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the first shortened transmission time interval; identifying any common reference signals that are transmitted in the second shortened time interval; and associating the corresponding one of the first and second configurations based on a presence or absence of common reference signals in the first and second shortened transmission time interval.