A wireless receiver is configured to perform a method of channel estimation in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) network. The method includes despreading a vector of received samples to determine an average channel estimate for each of a plurality of multiplexed layers associated with the MIMO network, canceling inter-layer interference using the average channel estimates for the layers and obtaining a time-varying estimate for each layer, and estimating the channel using a two-dimensional minimum mean squared error (2D MMSE) technique.