Patent ID: 7606299

Claim:
An apparatus for estimating a Carrier-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (CINR) in a communication system, comprising: means for blocking received signals based on sub-carriers with similar channel characteristics; means for computing interference and noise levels on a block-by-block basis and true received signal levels on a block-by-block basis from the blocked received signals; and means for estimating CINRs on a block-by-block basis using ratios between the computed interference and noise levels and the computed true received signal levels, wherein the computing means further includes received signal level measurers for measuring levels of the blocked received signals and computing and outputting a sum of the received signal levels, interference and noise level estimators for estimating interference and noise levels of the blocked received signals and computing and outputting a sum of the interference and noise levels, and subtracters for subtracting the sum of the interference and noise levels from the sum of the received signal levels, and outputting a result of the subtraction.