An improved system and method for rate detection of transmitted signals is disclosed for use in a IS-95 CDMA downlink. For each speech frame, one of four possible bit rates is used to encode the frame according to the standard. The present invention describes a receiver and various processes that are able to detect which rate was sent without the aid of flag bits or other mode indication information. According to various embodiments of the invention different rate detection processes which can exploit additional code information, such as CRC checks and convolutional coding, are disclosed.