A base station (102,103) for communicating with a plurality of subscriber stations (111,112,113,114, 115,116) in a multicarrier wireless network, the base station comprising: a transmitter configured to transmit a signal over the multicarrier wireless network; and a controller coupled to the transmitter and configured to: transmit system-specific broadcast control channel information, with a first coding rate, in a first group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in a neighboring base station transmitting system-specific broadcast control channel information, generate a combined cell-specific output signal by combining cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), with a second coding rate, with a cell-specific pilot signal, and, scramble the combined cell-specific output signal using a cell-specific scrambling code, transmit the scrambled combined cell-specific output signal, comprising the cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), in a second group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in the neighboring base station transmitting cell-specific broadcast control channel information, wherein the time-frequency slots in the first group and the time-frequency slots in the second group are orthogonal to each other, and wherein the first coding rate is higher than the second coding rate. a transmitter configured to transmit a signal over the multicarrier wireless network; and a controller coupled to the transmitter and configured to: transmit system-specific broadcast control channel information, with a first coding rate, in a first group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in a neighboring base station transmitting system-specific broadcast control channel information, generate a combined cell-specific output signal by combining cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), with a second coding rate, with a cell-specific pilot signal, and, scramble the combined cell-specific output signal using a cell-specific scrambling code, transmit the scrambled combined cell-specific output signal, comprising the cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), in a second group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in the neighboring base station transmitting cell-specific broadcast control channel information, transmit system-specific broadcast control channel information, with a first coding rate, in a first group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in a neighboring base station transmitting system-specific broadcast control channel information, generate a combined cell-specific output signal by combining cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), with a second coding rate, with a cell-specific pilot signal, and, scramble the combined cell-specific output signal using a cell-specific scrambling code, transmit the scrambled combined cell-specific output signal, comprising the cell-specific broadcast control channel information (CB1, CB2), in a second group of same time-frequency slots as time-frequency slots used in the neighboring base station transmitting cell-specific broadcast control channel information, wherein the time-frequency slots in the first group and the time-frequency slots in the second group are orthogonal to each other, and wherein the first coding rate is higher than the second coding rate.