Methods and apparatuses are provided for wireless communication. Control symbols are mapped to a plurality of resource element groups (REGs) which is not assigned to a physical channel format indication channel (PCFICH) or a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH). The REGs are allocated based on a time first manner. The mapped control symbols are transmitted on a packet dedicated control channel (PDCCH). A number of the REGs in a physical resource block (PRB) on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol depends on an index of the OFDM symbol and a number of configured reference signals.