a method of combining a channel quality estimate for the radio channel based on direct measurement of carrier and interferer energies , and a channel quality estimate for the radio channel based on channel decoder metrics , to obtain a final channel quality estimate in terms of carrier - to - interference ratio for the radio channel , which is more reliable , consistent and accurate than that obtained with the individual methods . after computing a direct channel quality estimate and a decoder metric - based channel quality estimate for the radio channel , confidence levels , p , p , are assigned to the two estimates . p is multiplied with the direct channel quality estimate and p is multiplied with the decoder metric channel quality estimate . the respective products are added to obtain the final channel quality estimate in terms of the carrier - to - interference ratio for the radio channel .