Described is a method of performing carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation of physical channels in a mobile communications system. The method comprises the step of performing channel estimation of a received signal on a physical channel based on multiple orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) symbols in one or more reference signals (RSs). The method includes determining multiple phase rotation values Φ and corresponding time differences s between different OFDM symbols in the one or more RSs over a base phase rotation range comprising +/−π to obtain a first CFO estimation candidate f0. The base phase rotation range is extended to provide an extended phase rotation range of greater than +/−π to obtain additional CFO estimation candidates f1, f2 . . . fn within the extended phase rotation range.