An efficient
telecommunications receiver system for accurately decoding a received
composite signal having a
data signal component and a
pilot signal component. The
receiver system includes a first circuit for receiving the
composite signal and extracting a
pilot signal and a
data signal from received
composite signal. A second circuit calculates a log-likelihood ratio as a function of a channel estimate based on the
pilot signal. A third circuit scales the log-likelihood ratio by a predetermined log-likelihood ratio scaling factor and provides an accurate log-likelihood value in response thereto. A fourth circuit
decodes the received composite signal based on the accurate log-likelihood value and the
data signal. In a specific embodiment, the
pilot signal and the data signal comprise pilot samples and data samples, respectively. The third circuit includes a
carrier signal-to-
interference ratio circuit for computing a first signal-to-
interference ratio and a second signal-to-
interference ratio based partly on the
pilot signal. The first signal-to-interference ratio is based on the data samples, and the second signal-to-interference ratio is based on the pilot samples. The first signal-to-
noise ratio and the second signal-to-
noise ratio provide input to a circuit for computing the predetermined log-likelihood ratio scaling factor that is included in the third circuit. In a more specific embodiment, the first circuit includes a despreader for despreading the received composite signal in accordance with a predetermined spreading function and providing a despread signal in response thereto. The spreading function is a pseudo
noise sequence or a
Walsh function. The first circuit further includes a decovering circuit that extracts the
pilot signal and the data signal from the despread signal. In the illustrative embodiment, the accurate
receiver system further includes a circuit for generating a rate and / or
power control message and transmitting the rate and / or
power control message to an external
transceiver in communication with the efficient
receiver system.