Patent ID: 7720093

Claim:
A method of transmitting a plurality of data streams over a physical channel having a plurality of modulation channels each having a channel capacity, comprising: allocating the plurality of data streams among the plurality of modulation channels as a function of the channel capacity for each of the modulation channels; encoding the plurality of data streams using encoder rates varying as a function of the channel capacity for each of the modulation channels, each data stream of the plurality of data streams being encoded with an encoder rate corresponding to the channel capacity of the modulation channel to which said each data stream is allocated; and modulating the plurality of encoded data streams using a signal constellation mapper, thereby obtaining a plurality of modulated data streams to transmit over the physical channel; wherein the signal constellation mapper translates n number of binary values into a multi-dimensional constellation space of 2 n points, n being an integer, and wherein the step of modulating further comprises mapping each modulation channel of the plurality of modulation channels to one of the 2 n points.