Patent ID: 8787426

Claim:
A method performed in a receive node of a communication network, the receive node being structured to operate on a data stream transmitted from a transmit node, the method comprising: performing, by the receive node, a first stage processing a symbol of interest contained in a first composite signal; and performing, by the receive node, a second stage processing the same symbol of interest contained in a second composite signal, wherein the first stage processing comprises: determining one or more first stage interference characteristics based on the first composite signal; determining one or more first stage processing delays based on the first stage interference characteristics; performing a first stage despreading and combining of the first composite signal based on the first stage processing delays to generate a first stage equalized signal; determining a first stage estimated signal based on the first stage equalized signal; canceling the first stage estimated signal from the first composite signal to generate an interference-reduced version of the first composite signal, and wherein the second stage processing comprises: determining one or more second stage processing delays; and performing a second stage despreading and combining of the second composite signal based on the second stage processing delays to generate a second stage equalized signal, wherein the second composite signal is based on the interference-reduced version of the first composite signal.