A method comprising: receiving (610, 710) in a downlink channel of a cellular telecommunications system a signal comprising a plurality of frames, with each frame comprised of a plurality of sub-frames (210, 220), wherein at least one sub-frame of each frame comprises a primary synchronization channel sequence and a secondary synchronization channel sequence, the signal further comprising a pilot sequence; using (620, 720) the primary synchronization channel sequence contained in the signal to perform coarse synchronization with a cell having a base station transmitting the signal by performing a sliding cross correlation in a time domain using a reference primary synchronization channel sequence stored in a memory; using (630, 730) the secondary synchronization channel sequence contained in the signal to improve the coarse synchronization achieved with the primary synchronization channel sequence by performing a sliding cross correlation in a frequency domain using a reference secondary synchronization channel sequence stored in a memory; determining (640, 740) the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal; and using the pilot sequence (650, 750) to perform channel estimation, wherein the secondary synchronization channel sequence is selected from an orthogonal sequence set, wherein the signal further comprises information identifying the pilot sequence contained in the signal, and wherein determining the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal further comprises identifying the pilot sequence using the information, wherein the information identifying the pilot sequence comprises a cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences transmitted in sub-frames of two consecutive frames of the signal, where the cyclically invariant pair correspond to a particular pilot sequence, and where determining the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal further comprises: identifying the cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences transmitted in two consecutive frames and, in turn, the particular pilot sequence corresponding to the cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences. receiving (610, 710) in a downlink channel of a cellular telecommunications system a signal comprising a plurality of frames, with each frame comprised of a plurality of sub-frames (210, 220), wherein at least one sub-frame of each frame comprises a primary synchronization channel sequence and a secondary synchronization channel sequence, the signal further comprising a pilot sequence; using (620, 720) the primary synchronization channel sequence contained in the signal to perform coarse synchronization with a cell having a base station transmitting the signal by performing a sliding cross correlation in a time domain using a reference primary synchronization channel sequence stored in a memory; using (630, 730) the secondary synchronization channel sequence contained in the signal to improve the coarse synchronization achieved with the primary synchronization channel sequence by performing a sliding cross correlation in a frequency domain using a reference secondary synchronization channel sequence stored in a memory; determining (640, 740) the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal; and using the pilot sequence (650, 750) to perform channel estimation, wherein the secondary synchronization channel sequence is selected from an orthogonal sequence set, wherein the signal further comprises information identifying the pilot sequence contained in the signal, and wherein determining the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal further comprises identifying the pilot sequence using the information, wherein the information identifying the pilot sequence comprises a cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences transmitted in sub-frames of two consecutive frames of the signal, where the cyclically invariant pair correspond to a particular pilot sequence, and where determining the pilot sequence incorporated in the signal further comprises: identifying the cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences transmitted in two consecutive frames and, in turn, the particular pilot sequence corresponding to the cyclically invariant pair of secondary synchronization channel sequences.