A method and receiver for processing a composite signal (112) in a wireless communication system (100) is provided. The method includes receiving a composite signal (112) within a channel bandwidth, wherein the composite signal comprises one or more symbol streams (108, 110, 116) from a plurality of communication units (103, 104). The method also includes sampling the composite signal at a sampling rate, wherein the sampling rate comprises one of equal to a symbol rate of the composite signal or larger than the symbol rate of the composite signal. In addition, the method includes selecting a symbol sampling phase for each of the symbol streams from a plurality of communication units. The symbol streams from each of the communication units are aligned to produce an aligned composite signal by separating the symbol streams for each of the plurality of communication units and orthogonal recombining the symbol streams for each of the plurality of communication units based on the selected symbol sampling phase for each of the plurality of signals. The symbol streams are also separated based on the aligned composite signal.