A method and apparatus is provided for transmitting an orthogonal frequency domain multiple access (OFDMA) signal including a synchronization channel signal transmitted within a localized portion of a bandwidth of the OFDMA signal (818), the synchronization channel signal having predetermined time domain symmetry within the localized portion of the bandwidth (816). The synchronization channel signal enables an initial acquisition and cell search method with low computational load which provides OFDMA symbol timing detection and frequency error detection by differential processing of sequence elements of the synchronization channel signal (1112) and frame boundary detection and cell specific information detection (1114) in an OFDMA system supporting multiple system bandwidths, both synchronized and un-synchronized systems, a large cell index and an OFDMA symbol structure with both short and long cyclic prefix length.