The present invention relates to impulse noise estimation and removal in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions, and particularly to transmissions in power line communications and digital subscriber line (DSL) transmissions. The method includes the steps of: modulating data to be transmitted; performing an inverse fast Fourier transform; inserting a cyclic prefix into the data; transmitting the data as a set of OFDM symbols via a channel; receiving the set of OFDM symbols; removing the cyclic prefix; performing a fast Fourier transform; estimating impulse noise; canceling the impulse noise based upon the estimated impulse noise to produce a set of impulse noise-free data; estimating the channel; and demodulating and detecting the data transmitted based upon the estimated channel and the set of impulse noise-free data.