A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for employing pilot-reuse for training in the downlink of a wireless communication network. In one embodiment, the method comprises coordinating assignment of pilot codes across base stations in the topology and coordinating assignment of codes across base station-user terminal pairs, including assigning, from a set of pilot codes, a subset of codes to each cell in the topology, and assigning codes in each subset of codes to user terminals in said each cell based on cell dependent criteria; receiving waveforms from user terminals transmitting their assigned pilots; obtaining channel estimate information for channels between base station antennas and user terminals to which the base station is transmitting, the channel estimates based on the received waveforms; and transmitting to user terminals based on the channel estimate information.