Patent ID: 7957481

Claim:
A method for estimating a delay spread of a multipath channel formed by successive packets of a multicarrier signal, each including a plurality of subcarriers carrying data, the method comprising: estimating, for each received packet (n), a magnitude value (CE k,n ) of a channel estimate of each subcarrier (k) excluding null subcarriers; calculating, for each received packet (n), a mean magnitude value (CE mean,n ) of said estimated magnitude values (CE k,n ) channel estimates; estimating, after a number of packets (L) have been received, a delay spread or a root mean square, RMS, delay spread of said multipath channel based on at least a metric (M), said metric (M) is calculated as a function of said estimated magnitude values (CE k,n ) of said channel estimates and said mean magnitude values (CE mean,n ).