A receiver or an integrated circuit (IC) incorporated therein includes a fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based (or hybrid FFT-based) sliding window block level equalizer (BLE) for generating equalized samples. The BLE includes a noise power estimator, first and second channel estimators, an FFT-based chip level equalizer (CLEQ) and a channel monitor unit. The noise power estimator generates a noise power estimate based on two diverse sample data streams. The channel estimators generate respective channel estimates based on the sample data streams. The channel monitor unit generates a first channel monitor signal including truncated channel estimate vectors based on the channel estimates, and a second channel monitor signal which indicates an approximate rate of change of the truncated channel estimate vectors. The FFT-based CLEQ generates the equalized samples based on the noise power estimate, one-block samples of the first and second sample data streams, the channel estimates and the monitor signals.