An increasing number of cellular congestion controlalgorithms (CCAs) are relying on measurements of the deliveryrate observed at the receiver. Accordingly, early detection ofchanges in the receiver’s rate would improve the performanceof such algorithms. Rate measurements over short time intervalscould allow fast detection of change in the rate observed bythe upper layers of a cellular receiver. However, upper layerrate measurements for cellular receivers over a short time scaleproduce unreliable results due to the effect of underlying lowerlayer mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce a rate estimationapproach that reduces the variability observed in short timescale receiver rate measurements and allows faster rate changedetection.