In a communication system including a transmitter and a receiver the receiver is synchronized with the transmitter and a modulation type in a signal transmitted by the transmitter and received by the receiver is detected. A first portion of the received signal is correlated with one or more signals representing modulation types used by the communication system to detect the type of modulation being used in the received signal. Synchronization is established between the transmitter and the receiver. The first portion may be correlated with each of one or more different signals representing various modulation types used in the communication system to detect the type of modulation used. Alternately the first portion of the received signal may be derotated by different amounts to produce a plurality of derotated signals that are correlated with the signal representing modulation used by the communication system in order to detect the type of modulation used. If the correlation does not result in a determination of the modulation type either a predetermined modulation type is selected as the modulation type or the decision of the modulation type is made at a later stage based e.g. on a comparison of signal qualities or equalization results.