A spread spectrum receiver in a communication system compensating channel response, and the method thereof is disclosed. The spread spectrum receiver comprises a multiplier, a filter, a data channel correlator, a delay, and a channel compensator. The multiplier (322) multiplies despread pilots (320) with conjugate of pilot pattern (324) to provide channel estimates. The filter (323) filters the channel estimates from the multiplier (322). The data channel correlator (30) despreads data symbols in a data channel. The delay module (38), coupled to the data channel correlator (30), delays the despread data symbols for a period. The channel compensator (34), coupled to the filter (323) and the delay module (38), compensates the delayed despread data symbols with the filtered channel estimates.