Patent ID: 7953143

Claim:
A method comprising: setting, by a processor, values for β pivot , β c , and a ratio (m/M), wherein M is a number of monitored tones, m is a number of slicer error samples that must exceed a decision threshold for a symbol to be flagged as corrupted, and β pivot and β c are values associated with a monotonic function of a ratio of a statistical parameter of disruptive noise to a statistical parameter of nominal noise; selecting a plurality of values for M and computing a corresponding value of m based on the ratio (m/M); calculating α based on the values of M, m, and β pivot , wherein α is a tunable scaling factor; calculating a probability of a miss and a probability of a false alarm based on the values of M, m, β c , and α for each value of M; and adjusting the value of M such that the larger of the probability of a miss and the probability of a false alarm is a predetermined scale factor less than a predetermined bit error rate (BER) at a selected value of β c in order to achieve the predetermined BER.