Patent ID: 8665992

Claim:
A method, comprising: in a transmitter: generating a sequence of symbols which comprises information symbols and at least one pilot symbol; transmitting the information symbols at a first power; and transmitting the at least one pilot symbol at a second power, wherein: the second power is set to zero value when a particular performance indicator is below a determined threshold and to a non-zero value when the particular performance indicator is above the determined threshold; the first power and the second power are based on a tradeoff between phase noise tolerance and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) tolerance; each of the information symbols is set to a value in a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbol constellation, and each of the at least one pilot symbol is set to a value in a lower order phase shift keying (PSK) symbol constellation; and the at least one pilot symbol is transmitted with a pseudo random pattern.