Patent ID: 7336698

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a spread spectrum signal comprising user signals at a receiver of a radio system; and subjecting the received spread spectrum signal to one or more interference cancellation stages comprising one or more multiuser interference cancellation stages and one or more external interference cancellation stages, wherein, when external interference is lower than multiuser interference, one or more multiuser interference cancellation stages are executed prior to the external interference cancellation stage; wherein, when multiuser interference is lower than external interference, one or more external interference cancellation stages are executed prior to the multiuser interference cancellation stage; and wherein the multiuser interference cancellation stage comprises: despreading the user signals in order to generate user signal estimates; regenerating the user signals from the user signal estimates; combining the regenerated user signals in order to generate a combination signal; and subtracting the combination signal from the received spread spectrum signal in order to generate a residual signal.