A method for minimizing a time domain mean square error (MSE) of channel estimation (CE) includes estimating, by a processor, a power delay profile (PDP) from a time domain observation of reference signal (RS) channels; estimating, by the processor, a noise variance of the RS channels; and determining, by the processor, a first arrival path (FAP) value and a delay spread estimation (DSE) value based on the estimated PDP and the estimated noise variance for minimizing the MSE of CE.