A base station comprising: a receive path circuitry configured to receive a multiple-input multiple-output, MIMO, uplink subframe from a subscriber station, the MIMO uplink subframe having a first subset of layers having a total number of layers L 1 used for a first codeword transmission carrying acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement, ACK/NACK, information and rank indication, RI, information, and a second subset of layers having a total L 2 number of layers used for a second codeword transmission carrying ACK/NACK information, RI 10 information, and channel quality information, CQI, wherein a total number of coded symbols N ACK used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, wherein a total number of coded symbols N ACK used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 + L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, wherein a total number of coded symbols N RI used for carrying RI information is generated by repeating N RI /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, and, and wherein a total number of coded symbols N CQI is used for carrying CQI and N CQI /L 2 coded symbols are mapped across each of the L 2 layers, wherein the total N ACK number of coded symbols used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols as follows: where Q ACK denotes a number of total bits of coded ACK/NACK information, Q m denotes a number of bits per symbol, N denotes a total number of L 1 +L 2 layers, and q ACK denotes a bit of the coded ACK/NACK information. a receive path circuitry configured to receive a multiple-input multiple-output, MIMO, uplink subframe from a subscriber station, the MIMO uplink subframe having a first subset of layers having a total number of layers L 1 used for a first codeword transmission carrying acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement, ACK/NACK, information and rank indication, RI, information, and a second subset of layers having a total L 2 number of layers used for a second codeword transmission carrying ACK/NACK information, RI 10 information, and channel quality information, CQI, wherein a total number of coded symbols N ACK used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, wherein a total number of coded symbols N ACK used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 + L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, wherein a total number of coded symbols N RI used for carrying RI information is generated by repeating N RI /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols across each of the L 1 and L 2 layers, and, and wherein a total number of coded symbols N CQI is used for carrying CQI and N CQI /L 2 coded symbols are mapped across each of the L 2 layers, wherein the total N ACK number of coded symbols used for carrying ACK/NACK information is generated by repeating N ACK /(L 1 +L 2) coded symbols as follows: where Q ACK denotes a number of total bits of coded ACK/NACK information, Q m denotes a number of bits per symbol, N denotes a total number of L 1 +L 2 layers, and q ACK denotes a bit of the coded ACK/NACK information.