Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, determining a coherence block for each
user equipment (UE) of a plurality of UEs being served by the first
cell, resulting in a plurality of coherence blocks, responsive to the determining, identifying a smallest coherence block from the plurality of coherence blocks, identifying a
pilot sequence length based on the smallest coherence block, determining a plurality of orthogonal
pilot sequences based on the identifying the
pilot sequence length, designating, from the plurality of orthogonal pilot sequences, a first group of orthogonal pilot sequences for use in the first
cell, and distributing, to each neighboring
cell of a plurality of neighboring cells adjacent to the first cell, a respective group of orthogonal pilot sequences from a remainder of the plurality of orthogonal pilot sequences, to prevent pilot
contamination between the first cell and the plurality of neighboring cells. Other embodiments are disclosed.