  The accuracy of any physical scheme used to estimate the parameter describing
the strength of a single qubit Pauli channel can be quantified using standard
techniques from quantum estimation theory. It is known that the optimal
estimation scheme, with m channel invocations, uses initial states for the
systems which are pure and unentangled and provides an uncertainty of
O[1/m^(1/2)]. This protocol is analogous to a classical repetition and
averaging scheme. We consider estimation schemes where the initial states
available are not pure and compare a protocol involving quantum correlated
states to independent state protocols analogous to classical repetition
schemes. We show, that unlike the pure state case, the quantum correlated state
protocol can yield greater estimation accuracy than any independent state
protocol. We show that these gains persist even when the system states are
separable and, in some cases, when quantum discord is absent after channel
invocation. We describe the relevance of these protocols to nuclear magnetic
resonance measurements.
