Methods and apparatuses are provided for wireless communication. Control symbols are mapped to a plurality of resource element groups (REGs) which is not assigned to a physical channel format indication channel (PCFICH) or a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH). The mapped control symbols are transmitted on a packet dedicated control channel (PDCCH). A physical resource block (PRB) on a second orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol in a first slot in a subframe includes three REGs if one or two cell-specific reference signals are configured, and the PRB on the second OFDM symbol of the first slot in the subframe includes two REGs if four cell-specific reference signals are configured.