Bit error estimates from pilot signals

Bit error rate estimates are used for measuring link quality in a radio telecommunications system. Unbiased, raw bit error estimates are produced from existing pilot symbols. The bit error rate estimates may be generated without incurring extra signaling overhead. More particularly, an estimation of link quality is obtained by receiving control signals in a radio receiver, where each control signal may include one or more pilot symbols deriving a channel estimate for each control signal, modifying each channel estimate as a function of the corresponding control signal's contribution to the channel estimate, and deriving a link quality measure based on said modified channel estimates.