A method in a wireless communications device, for example, 3.sup.rd Generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telephone System (UMTS) user equipment, including estimating (210) noise power of a signal, estimating signal power (220) of the signal, estimating a signal to noise ratio (230) based on the estimated noise power and the estimated signal power, and at least partially unbiasing (240) the estimated signal to noise ratio based on the interval over which the noise power is averaged.