Aspects of the disclosure are related to identifying whether an apparatus (e.g., base station, access point, etc.) is transmitting using a CRS based transmission scheme or a UE-RS based transmission scheme. Such detection may be necessary for PDSCH interference cancellation (IC) of a neighboring cell since a UE may not know which transmission scheme is used by the neighboring cell. For instance, the UE may know the transmission scheme of the serving cell, but the UE may not know the transmission scheme of a neighboring non-serving cell. As such, aspects of the disclosure provide for a blind detection algorithm to identify or determine a transmission mode or transmission scheme of a neighboring cell to then apply interference cancellation (IC) to an interfering signal received from the neighboring cell.