In a digital communications receiver configured to receive, via a communications channel, a received first signal representing a sequence of symbols, each symbol being encoded to be representative of data bits, a method of processing the received signal includes adjusting a magnitude, filtering, and applying cyclic prefix restoration, to the received signal to produce a second signal, converting the second signal from time domain to frequency domain to produce a frequency domain signal, and determining a first quantity of values representing a first portion of the symbols by evaluating a relationship of channel values representing characteristics of the communications channel and a second quantity of values representing a portion of the frequency domain signal, the first quantity being smaller than the second quantity.