Systems and methods are described to supply positioning reference signal (PRS) in a telecommunication system. A base station supplies a PRS sequence according at least to a time-frequency pattern of modulation symbols, wherein the time-frequency pattern assigns a modulation symbol to each frequency tone in a block of time-frequency resources allocated to transmit PRS. The base station associates a modulation symbol in the time-frequency pattern with a reference symbol in the PRS sequence through a mapping that represents the time-frequency pattern. The PRS sequence is conveyed to user equipment through delivery of a set of modulation symbols established through the mapping. Different time-frequency patterns can be exploited based on time-structure of a radio sub-frame. The user equipment receives the PRS sequence according to at least the time-frequency pattern of modulation symbols and utilizes at least the PRS sequence as part of a process to produce a location estimate.