A base station herein assists a radio network controller (RNC) to allocate scrambling codes in a cell. The base station's assistance advantageously permits the RNC to allocate different length scrambling codes to different mobile terminals (or downlink carriers) in the cell. Specifically, the base station determines a preference for whether the length of a scrambling code to be allocated to each terminal or carrier should be short or long, based on whether uplink communications transmitted by the terminal, or downlink communications transmitted over the carrier, are to be processed with a high-complexity receiver or a low-complexity receiver. The RNC receives these preferences from the base station and takes them into account in order to allocate either a short scrambling code or a long scrambling code to each terminal or downlink carrier in the cell. The RNC then propagates the scrambling code allocations throughout the cell.